USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume II > Part 19
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Mr. Berg was married at Hanover Center, November 22, 1898, to Susan Heiser, who grew up in that community and was educated in the common schools. Mr. and Mrs. Berg are the parents of one son and four daughters, Ruth, Harold, Dorothy, Virginia and Katherine. The oldest being fourteen and the youngest about two years of age. The four oldest children are now in school. Mrs. Berg has devoted her married life to the interests of her home and children, and is an active member of the Catholic Church. Mr. Berg served three years as town clerk at Lowell, having been appointed to the office in 1897, and then elected. At the same time he served as town treasurer. During his official service he was one of the foremost advocates of waterworks, and did much to secure that important improvement. Politically he stands as a progressive.
GEORGE L. FOSTER. Assistant cashier of the Lowell National Bank, George L. Foster has been identified with this thriving town of North- ern Indiana for the past seven years, but also professes a loyalty to the community as his birthplace. Mr. Foster is a successful young business man, and has also played a useful part in local affairs and is now serv- ing his second term as city clerk.
George L. Foster was born at Lowell, August 26, 1882, a son of Edson and Alma Foster, both living on their farm in Lake County, the father at the age of sixty and the mother at fifty-five. There is one other child, Harry, aged twenty-seven and a farmer.
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George L. Foster lived in Lowell until thirteen, began his education there, and when the family moved to Chicago Heights he was a student in the high school for three years. His first practical experience was as an assistant in the postoffice at Chicago Heights, but for six years he was with the American Brake Shoe & Foundry Company, and for a time represented that industry in the East at Suffern, New York. In 1908 Mr. Foster established his home at Lowell, and has since then been assistant cashier of the Lowell National Bank. In 1911 came his first election to the office of city elerk, and by re-election in 1913 he is still serving. Mr. Foster is one of those public-spirited men who foresee con- tinued advancement and prosperity for Lowell, particularly as a resi- dence city. He believes in progressive movements for betterment and improvements, and is one of the advocates of the movement now under way for the paving of Main Street. Since he became clerk another improvement was the continnous light system for the city lighting plant, and a number of paved cement walks have been put down. Mr. Foster is a Methodist, a progressive in politics, and has held some of the chairs in Colfax Lodge No. 378, A. F. & A. M. In June, 1909, he married Lena Hayward, of Chicago Heights. Mrs. Foster was reared and edu- cated in Des Moines, Iowa.
WILLIAM PEPPERDINE. One of the most prominent business men of Hammond is William Pepperdine, whose interests have been identified with that city since 1890. As a contractor and builder it is only necessary to refer to a few of the contraets which he has successfully executed to determine his standing as one of the leading men in his line in the Calu- met district. In Hammond the Franklin, the Lafayette, the Sobiesky, the German Lutheran schools are all examples of his work as a builder, besides the Baptist Church, and the hundreds of homes and minor busi- ness stores and shops, etc. He also had the contract for the erection of the First National Bank of East Chicago. Mr. Pepperdine is a clear- headed business man, and, coming to America some forty years ago, has won his success through his own unaided efforts. Capital was less important with him than hard work and close application to business, and he has also performed much important service to his community as a citizen. His business is now carried on under the name of William Pepperdine & Son, his son Francis Albert being associated with him as junior member. Mr. Pepperdine under appointment from Governor Durbin served as police commissioner of Hammond.
Born in Lincolnshire, England, March 25, 1852, William Pepperdine was educated in the national schools, served an apprenticeship as a brick- layer in his native land, and in 1870, at the age of eighteen, came to America and first located at Milford, Illinois. During the following years he did a great amount of building and carpentry work in Indiana towns, and when he came to Hammond it was with a splendid equipment of experience and proved ability in his line.
In 1873 Mr. Pepperdine married Elizabeth MeKnight. They are the parents of two children : John William, who served as assistant post- master at Hammond under three different postmasters and superin- tended the installation of the free delivery system in that city, and is now a resident of Omaha, Nebraska; Francis A. is the junior member of Pepperdine & Son. The father has active membership in the Commercial Club of Hammond and of Indiana Harbor, and is a member of the Hammond Country Club, is affiliated with the Masonic lodge, the Inde-
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pendent Order of Odd Fellows and the benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a vestryman in St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
John William Pepperdine, the oldest son, was born September 28, 1874, while Francis Albert was born at Milford, Illinois, December 14, 1876. Both had the advantages of the public schools, and while John interested himself in public lines of work, Francis grew up under his father's instruction as a mason and contractor. Francis was married October 7, 1899, to Florence Norvada Marshall of Hammond. Their three children are Frances M., Beatrice, and Geneva Marshall. Mr. F. A. Pepperdine is a member of the St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
John W. Pepperdine was married December 14, 1898, to Grace B. Powell. Their three living children are Lyman, Harry and Margaret. They lost a daughter Dorothy on May 31, 1900.
J. M. CASTLE. For more than sixty years a resident of Lake County, Mr. Castle is one of the citizens whose name and a brief record of whose career should be permanently recorded in any history of the community. He represents a family which has had its part in the early development of the county, was himself one of Lake County's soldiers for the war of the Rebellion, and since his return to the county as a veteran soldier has had his full share in the responsibilities of making a living and providing for home and family and has also discharged his duties to the general community with an efficiency which brings him honor.
J. M. Castle was born in Huron County, Ohio, August 25, 1841. His father, Squire Castle was a native of Fairfield, Vermont, and his mother, Almeda (Hudson) Castle, was a native of Braintree, Vermont, and were married at Burlington, that state, in 1837. They were early settlers in Ohio, moved to Michigan in 1850, and in 1852 arrived in West Creek Township of Lake County. J. M. Castle was then about twelve years of age, and continued his education in the local schools until fifteen. His place was on the home farm until 1863, in which year he enlisted in the Union army, going out with Company E of the Twenty- Eighth Indiana Infantry. His service was a notable one, being with the splendid army under the command of Sherman during the battle of Missionary Ridge, the battles leading up to the siege and capture of Atlanta, after which he was sent with the troops under Schofield and Thomas into Tennessee to meet Hood, and participated at Franklin and Nashville; from Clifton, Tennessee, he went into Virginia, on to Wash- ington, and by boat to Wilmington, North Carolina, and was in Cox's Division at the time of the capture of that Confederate stronghold. He finally reached Newbern and was in the battle of Wise's Fork, North Carolina, and joined the army of Sherman at Goldsboro. He was with the army at Raleigh and remained in the Carolinas until the sur- render of Johnston, then went to Charlotte, to Salisbury, and to Raleigh, and in 1866 left Raleigh and was finally discharged at Indianapolis. With this record as a soldier he returned to Lake County, spent a year in the railroad service at Valparaiso, was for two years in the employ of the Union Pacific in the West, and since 1869 his home has been permanently in Lake County. After his marriage he located on a rented farm, and as a result of many years of activity in farms and in mer- chandising has acquired a substantial position in the community of Lowell.
On December 15, 1869, Mr. Castle married Sarah A. Zinn, of La Porte County, Indiana. Their oldest child is Genevieve, the wife of
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Levi Wood, of Lowell; Gwendolyn, aged twenty-nine, is with her father in the store at Lowell, and Gwyneth is the wife of Ed Browell, of Lowell.
Mr. Castle during Cleveland's administration served as postmaster at Lowell, and has always given his allegiance to the democratic party. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order. Mr. Castle has a mercantile establishment that has long been a conspicuous center in the business district, and is also the owner of 304 acres of land, besides having given 120 acres to his children. Mr. Castle has served as postmaster at Lowell and his brother Mortimer is now the incumbent of that office, a very unusual occurrence, and on August 15, 1914, he had two threshing out- fits at work on his land, another happening that rarely occurs.
THADDEUS S. FANCHER. This is a name which through two genera- tions has become one of the most familiar in Lake County, and has been dignified by splendid service in the law and also in the practical con- structive work which has extended the area of cultivated land over a district formerly known only as a marsh and practically valueless. The present bearer of the title Thaddeus S. Fancher is a young Crown Point lawyer, and a son of Thaddeus S. Fancher, Sr., who practiced law in the county seat of Lake County for over forty years and by per- sonality, individual attainments in his profession, and by his varied service to the public, left one of the most honorable names in the annals of Northern Indiana.
Thaddeus S. Fancher, Sr., who died at Crown Point February 11, 1912, was born in Huron County, Ohio. August 31, 1845. Both his father and his grandfather before him had the Christian name Thad- deus S. The first Thaddeus S. was of French descent, a native of Con- necticut, and a pioneer in Huron County, Ohio. His son Thaddeus S. the second, was born in Huron County in 1809, and spent all his life on one farm in that county, dying at the age of eighty-four. His wife, whose maiden name was Amy Chapman, lived to the venerable age of eighty-seven years.
The late Thaddeus S. Fancher, who was the seventh among ten children, was reared in Huron County, and attended one of the pioneer schoolhouses so celebrated in American history. He then taught school to pay his expenses while attending Oberlin College, and in 1868 arrived at Crown Point, where two years were spent alternately in the study of law with Major Griffin and in teaching school. Mr. Fancher entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in 1870, graduating in the law department in 1871, and having already been admitted to the bar at Crown Point in 1870, at once took up practice there. It is said that when he first offered his services to the community as a lawyer his cash capital amounted to eighty cents. He was soon given business, and few members of the bar practiced with steadier or more substantial success. In 1873 he was elected county superintendent of schools for two years, and though re-elected resigned to resume his law practice. For four years he served as prosecuting attorney and in 1879 was elected on the republican ticket to the state legislature, and his re-election in 1881 came by the largest majority ever given any candidate in the county up to that time. During his service at Indianapolis he served on the revi- sion committee that revised the Indiana statutes, and was also instru- mental in passing the first practical drainage and reclamation law, that instituted the extensive work that has since converted Northwestern
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Indiana from a wilderness of marsh into some of the finest agricultural land in the state.
From 1881 Mr. Fancher divided his time between a large general practice and his interests as a land owner and in behalf of the movement for reclamation and drainage in the Calumet district. He was the lawyer who solved most of the legal problems involved in the construction of over a hundred and fifty miles of ditches, and was one of the men most instrumental in constructing the pioneer ditch in 1885, known as the Singleton ditch, in the Kankakee marsh, a ditch seventeen miles long and costing $17,000, and which inaugurated the era which in the subsequent twenty years has made many thousands of acres available for all the staple crops of this section.
The late Mr. Fancher was affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. On September 27, 1871, at Green- wich, Ohio, he married Miss Ardelle Washburn, daughter of Charles A. and Marietta (Griffin ) Washburn. Thaddeus S. Fancher, Jr., is the only living child of that marriage. The deceased children are: Walter, who died, aged one year and three months; Charles HI., at the age of ten years; Frank O., at the age of four years and ten months; and Edith L., when eight years and three months.
Thaddeus S. Fancher, Jr., was born at Crown Point, December 7, 1888. His education in the public schools was followed by a course of three years in Valparaiso University until graduating in 1911, and in the meantime in 1907 he had pursued a course at the Kent College of Law in Chicago. Since then he has been engaged in a general practice at Crown Point and is now adding to the reputation so long asso- ciated with this name in the Lake County bar. Mr. Fancher is a mem- ber of the Lake County Bar Association.
JOHN H. FETTERHOFF. During five years of active practice at Whit- ing, Mr. Fetterhoff's name has become well known and prominent in legal circles, he has gained a position which is the ambition of every lawyer, and has also taken much part in public affairs.
John H. Fetterhoff was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1880, a son of substantial farming people, P. W. and Kathryne Fetterhoff. As a boy he had to depend largely upon his own exertions and his own plans for the future, and after a training in the public schools, attended for several terms the Elizabethville Seminary, and helped to pay his way by two years of teaching. His early business career was chiefly as a banker, and for five years he was assistant cashier of Halifax National Bank in Pennsylvania, and although that was his official title, he was practically the executive manager of the institution for about three years. In the fall of 1906 Mr. Fetterhoff came West and entered the law department of Valparaiso University and remained a student there until his graduation LL. B. in 1908. Since May 1, 1909, he has practiced in Whiting, and in March, 1913, took in as a partner Roy E. Green. He handles a large amount of general legal business, and is also advisory counsel to the Whiting Board of Education and is deputy prosecuting attorney and city attorney.
Mr. Fetterhoff is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of Masonry, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Owl Club, the Chicago Progressive Club and the Slovak Political Club of Hammond. In politics he is a progressive.
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L. H. MATTERN. From the standpoint of years of continuous activ- ity, L. H. Mattern is now the oldest merchant at Whiting. His store and his mercantile service, have been familiar to the people of that community for more than twenty years, and he is also one of the most honored citizens of the community.
L. H. Mattern was born in Huntington County, Pennsylvania, Sep- tember 27, 1841, a son of Andrew and Sophia Mattern. His father was a wagon maker, and in the spring of 1866 moved out to Indiana and located in Huntington County, where he bought a farm and followed agriculture until his retirement. His death occurred at the good old age of ninety-six May 3, 1909, and his wife passed away in December, 1909, aged ninety-four. Both were active members of the Presbyterian Church.
L. H. Mattern attended the public schools of his native county in Pennsylvania, and also the Juniata Collegiate Institute. At the age of twenty he got his first experience in the drug trade, and after coming to Indiana worked in a general store at Huntington, and then returned to Pennsylvania and conducted a general store four years. Selling out his business in that state Mr. Mattern on February 1, 1892, estab- lished a drug store at Whiting, and has been continuously in that line of trade to the present time. His first stock of goods were in the Porter Block, later in the Smith & Bader Building, and in 1911 he located in the new Schrage Bank Building.
Mr. Mattern was married in 1867 to Sallie Martin of Pennsylvania. She died in 1887. She was the mother of two children, Carrie, who died at the age of twenty-two years and Lillian, now living in Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Mattern, in 1893, married Ada C. Brown, of Minneapolis. Her death occurred January 28, 1912, and she left one daughter. Louise H., who now lives with her father. Mr. Mattern has affiliations with the Masonic Order, is a charter member of the Owl Club, which was started in 1894. and attends the Congregational Church. A republican in politics. he gave service for ten years on the township advisory board.
FRANK N. GAVIT. One of the best known and most successful law- yers of Lake County is Frank N. Gavit, of Whiting. He is not only an able lawyer. but has taken an active part in state politics and has won a reputation for his fidelity to his ideals and to the trusts which the people of the state and community have reposed in him. He is the type of citizen who began life without special advantages, except such as he secured by his own efforts, and rose from a place among the multitude to a front rank in his learned profession.
Frank N. Gavit was born in Walsingham, Ontario, April 24, 1864, son of Albert and Bridget Gavit. His father was a farmer, and in 1872 moved to Pontiac, Michigan, and in 1877 to Saginaw, which city has been his home ever since.
Frank N. Gavit got his preparation for life as a public school student and in energetic work on the farm and whatever labors devolved upon his youthful energies. He subsequently gradnated from Valparaiso University, and took his law course in the Northwestern University at Chicago, which graduated him LL. B. in 1890. After two and a half years practice at Saginaw Mr. Gavit moved to Whiting in 1892, and is now one of the oldest members of the bar in that city. His public service has been through the offices of district prosecuting attorney, city attor-
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ney, and in 1910 came his election as a member of the Indiana State Senate for four years, and at the present time he is candidate for re-elec- tion to that office. As city attorney Mr. Gavit has the distinction of having drawn up the charter of incorporation of Whiting as a town and also as a city, and throughout the years he has been called upon again and again for important legal advice and counsel in municipl matters.
Mr. Gavit was married in 1893 to Minnie V. Tweedy, of Saginaw. Their two children are Albert and Ruth Eleanor, both at home. Mr. Gavit has attained the thirty-second degree in Scottish Rite Masonry, is a Knight Templar and a Shriner, belongs to the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was a charter member of the Owl Club when it was established about twenty years ago, is a member of the Hamilton Club of Chicago, the Chicago Antomobile Club, the Hammond Country Club, and in politics is progressive. Mr. Gavit has been honored with the office of president of the Whiting Commercial Club since its organization in 1900. Outside of his profession he is president of the G. & I. Rail- way and president of the Petroleum Company.
WILLIAM DANIEL WEIS, B. S., M. D. Many of the leaders in the medical profession today are devoting themselves in a large measure to the prevention of disease, as well as to its cure. In this way their effi- ciency as benefactors has extended much beyond the scope of the old fashioned practice when the doctor was related to his patients only as an individual. In the Calumet district one of the real leaders in the public health movement, and also a man of the highest standing and prestige as a physician and surgeon, is Dr. W. D. Weis. He comes of a family that has been identified with Lake County for sixty years, and both his father and grandfather helped to develop the community from pioneer times and were men of standing in their respective communities.
William Daniel Weis was born at Hanover Center, in Lake County, November 28, 1873. His parents are Jacob A. and Julia A. (Long) Weis, the former a native of Germany and the latter of Buffalo, New York. Jacob A. Weis, who was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1841, a son of John and Catherine Weis, accompanied his parents to America in 1847. John Weis, Sr., after serving for several years as a farmer in the vicinity of Joliet, Illinois. in 1853, settled in St. John Township, Lake County, buying a farm on which Jacob A. Weis was reared. Early in his career Jacob A. Weis learned the trade of blacksmith, and about 1864 became the village blacksmith at Merrillville, in this county. Two years later he moved to Hanover Center, where as an inducement the villagers had built and presented to him a shop and home. His services here extended over a period of ten years, when he moved into Jasper County, where he bought a farm and engaged in the live-stock raising business, and also operated a sawmill for two years. In 1876 Jacob A. Weis moved with his family to Crown Point, where he resumed his trade as blacksmith for nine years, after which he began to take contracts for house moving and construction of foundations, which business he followed until his retirement. In 1892 he moved to Hammond, where he now resides. In 1865 Jacob A. Weis married Julia A. Long, a native of Erie County, New York, residing at that time in St. John Township, Lake County. They have nine children living, as follows: Mary M., Mrs. J. D. Arnold, of Hammond; Joseph W., of Hammond ; Frances A., Mrs. Frank Prairie,
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of Chicago; Dr. William D .; Rose E., wife of Joseph Emmerling, of Hammond; Theresa C., Mrs. Peter Young, of Hammond; Harry L., of Hammond; Carl E., of Hammond; and Julia C., of Hammond. The family are members of St. Joseph's Church of Hammond.
Doctor Weis was reared during the greater part of his developing period at Crown Point. He attended parochial school, the Crown Point high school, was captain of the High School Cadets, and for two years taught school in Hanover Township. In 1896 he entered Valparaiso University as a student, completing the Scientific and the Civil En- gineering courses and was subsequently connected with the faculty of instruction as assistant professor of Biology and Natural Sciences in that institution for six years. Resigning that position he became the Registrar for the Chicago College for Nurses, at the same time being appointed professor of Histology and Bacteriology in the American College of Medicine and Surgery, which position he held until coming to Hammond in 1904. After graduation in medicine, Doctor Weis spent six months as House Physician in St. Margaret's Hospital. He is licensed by examination to practice medicine in Indiana and Illinois and has enjoyed a large general practice at Hammond and vicinity ever since opening up his office in 1904. Banking and real estate and the organized professional societies and public health movements have enlisted his services and influence, and he is through his varied relations one of the most prominent men of Hammond. Mayor Becker in 1908 appointed him Health Commissioner of Hammond, and by re-appointment from Mayor Smalley he is now serving his seventh consecutive year in that office. In 1912 he was made president of the Lake Michigan Sanitary Association, an important organization embracing the health officers of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, and working as an organiza- tion for the raising of the standards of sanitation and community health in the district about Lake Michigan. He was president of the Lake County Medical Society during 1913, and has membership in the Indiana and American Medical Associations. As a business man he is vice presi- dent and one of the organizers of the Citizens German National Bank of Hammond, was one of the organizers and is a director of the West Hammond Trust & Savings Bank, is a director and chairman of the committee on health and sanitation in the Chamber of Commerce, is a member and was one of the original thirty who bought the land and organized the Hammond Country Club. Fraternally he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, the Catholic Order of Foresters and the Knights of Columbus.
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