USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume II > Part 48
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Grant Hayden grew up on his father's farm and assisted in its labors until he was twenty-three, having in the meantime attended the country schools up to nineteen. His independent enterprise at the be- ginning was as a renter, and he lived for eight years on the old James Brannon Farm. In 1892 Mr. Hayden bought his present fine estate near Lowell comprising 1011/2 acres. Ten years later his land was all paid for and well improved, and he then built a two-story residence and has also equipped his place with good barns and other facilities for general farming and stock raising. His home has all the modern con- veniences, and he is one of Lake County's most popular citizens.
On December 21, 1886, Mr. Hayden married Emma Zartman of Kankakee County, Illinois, where she was educated in the local schools. Their three children are: Vernon L., twenty-seven years of age, who married Bessie Smith of Lafayette; Lucinda O., aged twenty-four, and the wife of Bert Strickland of Lowell, and the mother of a small daughter named Florene; Forrest E., twelve years of age and attending school. Mr. Hayden is a republican in politics, and his church is the Methodist.
ALFRED CARLSON. One of the most active members of the citizens body which introduced such sweeping changes in municipal government at Gary is Alfred Carlson, who is now serving as police commissioner of that city. Mr. Carlson has been identified with Gary for the past five years, and is now one of the leading business men of the city. His career has been one of noteworthy progress from the age of eighteen when he landed in America, a Swedish youth, with practically no knowl- edge of America in its language and institutions, and for several years
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he earned his living by work in a brick yard at Chesterton. It was through the hardest kind of manual labor that he finally secured foot- hold in the new world, and for a number of years his expert knowledge in real estate has given him an exceptionally high position among his competitors in that field in the Calumet region.
Alfred Carlson was born in Sweden, March 13, 1863. On the 15th of April, 1881, he landed from a vessel at New York City, and in a few weeks began his employment in a brick yard at Chesterton. His experi- ence during the following twenty years was of a varied nature, but he was getting ahead in the world, and since 1903 has given most of his time to real estate.
In 1909 Mr. Carlson moved to Tolleston, now Gary, and in January of that year organized the Oak Hill Cemetery Association. Oak Hill Cemetery is now the most beautiful burying ground about Gary. The association secured and developed forty acres of land, and it was due to the enterprise of Mr. Carlson that this undertaking was so success- fully carried out. IIe has also organized several companies, including the Riverside Land Company, and has put on the market a number of additions and subdivisions. His associates in the greater part of his real estate transactions has been his brother, John A. Carlson.
On June 20, 1884, Mr. Carlson married Maria Broholm, of Sweden. They have two children: John A., who was formerly cashier of the Citizens Trust & Savings Bank of Indiana Harbor, married Olga Ander- son of Chicago; and Ethel M. lives at home. Mr. Carlson affiliates with the Royal League, the Gary Commercial Club, is a progressive in polities, and a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church.
GEORGE S. DOAK. One of the veteran farmer residents of Lake County, George S. Doak has lived in this community more than sixty years, has met and accepted the hazard of chance and circumstance, has steadily strengthened a reputation for integrity and unimpeachable con- duct, and along with a fair degree of well-won prosperity has acquired those inestimable riches of character and honor. To describe all the associations of George S. Doak would be to write a history of Lake County during the past sixty years. One notable fact that should be mentioned at the beginning is that the last survivor of a group of enthusiastic original republicans who, in 1856, in Eagle Creek Township, cast their votes and used their influence toward the election of John C. Fremont, the first standard bearer of the republican party. During the first years of his residence in Lake County he witnessed that abundance of animal life which has long since disappeared. Wolves abounded in the woods, the wild geese were so numerous that a closed season for hunting was unthought of, and Mr. Doak in those days has seen as many as fifty deer in one herd.
George S. Doak, who now lives on his fine homestead on section 1 of Eagle Creek Township, was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, November 22, 1834, and has already completed more than fourscore years of human existence. His parents were John and Mary ( Anderson) Doak, the former a native of Beaver County and the latter of Wash- ington County, Pennsylvania. Both died on their homestead farm in Morrow County, Ohio. They were married in Pennsylvania, but in 1840 moved out to a new country in what is now Morrow, but then a part of Richland County, Ohio. The father secured a tract of wild land, the greater part of it in timber, and spent many years of hard labor in reclaiming and making the land capable of production.
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George S. Doak was the fifth in a family of seven children, three of whom are still living. Educational opportunities during the decade of the '40s and '50s anywhere in the country were very limited as compared with modern school facilities, and George S. Doak had to be content with what the local schools supplied. He attended school in Morrow County, Ohio, and lived at home until reaching his majority in 1855. That year marked his arrival in Lake County. The cause of his coming to this section of Indiana was due to the location by his father of a Mexican land warrant in Eagle Creek Township. Mr. Doak moved to this land claim, found it a part of the primeval wilderness, and had a strenuous program in clearing and preparing the land for cultivation.
In 1860 Mr. Doak married Pleiades Kingsbury, daughter of Hiram Kingsbury, whose name has gone down in the annals of Lake County as one of the most prominent pioneers. He came from New York State to Lake County in 1844, settling on the farm which is now the prop- erty of Mr. Doak. After his marriage Mr. Doak moved to the Kings- bury place in 1864, and again was confronted with the heavy task of developing practically an unimproved farm, since a very small portion of the land was in cultivation. There is no better farm in Lake County now than the Doak place, and all its thorough improvements including residence, two tenant houses, several barns, fences and well-managed fields can all be credited either to his direct labor or his capable super- vision. When he settled there no railroad went through this part of Lake County, and most of the land was very low and swampy. Mr. Doak recalls that during his early years in Lake County most of the marketing was done in Chicago, and it was customary for the hog raisers to take their dressed pork to that city and sell it as low as $2.50 per hundred. In the fall of 1856 Mr. Doak found employment as a teacher, and taught for several winters in the southwest part of the county. Most of the schoolhouses in the county at that time, as he recalls, were made of logs, with puncheon floors, and the latch which secured the door was lifted by means of a leather thong which passed through a hole and hung on the outside. Many of his pupils were larger than himself and some of them as old. At one time he had a school of fifty-six scholars, and the school was supported in the customary manner of the times by subscription.
When Mr. Doak located on the Kingsbury place, the farm consisted of only 160 acres. He has since, as prosperity has smiled on his efforts, extended his acreage until his farm now consists of 400 acres, and he also owns 160 acres in Winfield Township and 160 acres in Kansas. The source of his prosperity as a farmer has come from general agri- culture and the raising of stock and grain.
Though a republican, and as already stated, one of the pioneers of that party in the county, he has never aspired to office and has been satisfied to do his civic duty through individual relations with the community and as a good neighbor. Mrs. Doak passed away in 1866, leaving two children. Mary is now her father's housekeeper. The son, Jay, is manager of the home farm and also has served for a number of years as assessor in Eagle Creek Township. Mr. Jay Doak married May Davis, and their two children are Kenneth and Joan.
PHILIP ROPER, SR. Among Lake County families who by long resi- dence and individual character and services have an appropriate place
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in local biographical annals, that of Roper has some interesting distinc- tions. It is now nearly sixty years since the older generation of that name took up its residence in the vicinity of Hobart, and though Philip Roper, Sr., was then a young boy he has been a witness of all the developments which have built railroads, modern pike roads, towns and cities, with the many other magnificent improvements of the twentieth century. There were but two railroads through Lake County, Indiana, the Michigan Central and the Michigan Southern. Both roads were built near the same date, which was 1848, or near that year. Mr. Roper has a comfortable rural home near Hobart on the Rural Route No. 1.
He and most of his brothers and sisters were born in England, in one of the quaint and interesting rural districts of that country. His birth occurred November 17, 1847. The dates and other items in the family record are as follows: James O. Roper, his father, was born at Old Fen Turton Parish, England, October 6, 1810, and died at Hobart in Lake County, Indiana, August 27, 1885. Charlotte Baker, his wife, was the daughter of Jarvis and Mary (Ward) Baker, and was born in the same English parish just named in 1814 and died at Hobart, June 27, 1871. Their children were as follows: Edward B., born in England, April 15, 1843, and died in Chicago, Illinois, January 28, 1913, married Margaret Rhodes, and their children were James, Thomas, Charles and Clarence. Kezia, born in England, February 24, 1845, is the wife of Eben Parrish of Plymouth, Indiana, and their children are Charles, Eben, James, Chester, Philip and Charlotte. Philip is third in the family, and his record of marriage and children is told in following paragraphs. Sara, who was born in England, February 21, 1849, and died March 14, 1874, married Andrew Sloan, of Warsaw, Indiana, a veteran of the Civil war, and their children are William and James. Thomas, who lives in Hobart, was born in England, February 28, 1851, and by his marriage to Frances Gurnsy has four children, Ida, Mary, Charlotte and Ruby. James, also a resident at Hobart, was born Febru- ary 26, 1853, after the family came to America, in Michigan, and married Amanda Randhan, whose children are Bliss, John, Emily, Evan, Lee, Grace and Lewis. Charlotte, who was born in Michigan, March 22, 1855, and died April 12, 1914, married Samuel D. Henderson of Beloit, Wisconsin, and their children are Lewis, Ray, Earl Floyd, Etta and Gladys. Jarvis H., the youngest, who was born at Hobart, October 11, 1859, and died October 25, 1902, married Ella Smith, and their children are Owen J., Eunice and Ellwyn.
In 1851 the family emigrated to the United States, and arrived at New York on October 3d. Their voyage was made in a sailing vessel known as the Ocean Queen, and it was on the sea six weeks. At New York the father of the family fell from the gangplank and broke his thigh, and had to remain some weeks in New York. The mother and her five children came on to Michigan, and lived there until 1856, and then moved to Hobart, where the father bought eighty acres of land about three-quarters of a mile from that village. The first home of the Roper family in Lake County was a log cabin, and that house is still standing in a good state of repair, a silent witness of many remarkable changes in the surrounding country and a landmark of the early days. James Roper was one of the pioneers, and practically the only improvements on the site of Hobart when he came were the old schoolhouse and two or three dwellings. There were as yet no railroads through this part of
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the county, and all the marketing was done either at Michigan City or in Chicago.
Philip Roper had his early education from the district schools and attended the old school at Hobart. His years were spent on the farm with his parents until he was twenty-six. On November 23, 1873, he married Anna M. Guyer, of Burlington, Michigan. She was educated in the schools at Burlington and at Laporte. Indiana, and was a popular teacher both at Laporte and Hobart. Mrs. Roper had unusual foresight and predicted years ago the remarkable growth which has since prevailed and come to pass in this part of Indiana. She is a member of the Methodist Church, and is a believer in the principle of equal suffrage. To their marriage have been born four sons, Ernest G., Robert B., Luther D. and Philip E. Ernest is a sheet metal worker at East Gary. Robert Bruce is on a farm at Hobart. Luther is a railway postal clerk. Philip, Jr., is a rural mail carrier at Hobart. All the sons are married, and Mr. and Mrs. Roper have five grandchildren.
Mr. Roper has affiliations with the Knights of the Maccabees, and in politics is an independent democrat. In his early days he hunted a great deal, and has the honor of having shot deer when such animals were plentiful in Lake County. At his home he has a nice little farm of forty acres, and his career has been one of quiet and industrious agri- cultural activity. He is a member of the election board of East Gary, and for twenty years served as road supervisor, an office which he made an instrument for the improving and development of a portion of the good roads system now a credit to Lake County.
A. R. MCARTHUR. The establishment of the American Sheet & Tin Plate Mills at Gary brought a number of trained experts into local citizenship, and among them A. R. McArthur, now chief engineer. Mr. McArthur is a young collage man of technical training and practical experience, and has a record of fourteen years with the present cor- poration.
A. R. McArthur was born in Wisconsin in 1873, a son of Arthur and Mary (McGetchie) McArthur, his father a substantial farmer of Wis- consin. Mr. McArthur showed an early preference for mechanical pursuit, and in 1900 graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He soon afterwards was taken into the employ of the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company's factory at Elwood, Indi- ana, remained there until 1910, and then came to Gary as chief engineer of the local plant.
Mr. McArthur was married in 1901 to Mattie L. MeKenzie of Elwood, Indiana, and they have three children. Mr. McArthur is a member of the Presbyterian Church and in politics is independent.
CHARLES P. KIMMEL. Among the many industrious executives and experts whom the activities of Gary have collected to this center is Charles P. Kimmel, superintendent of the Merchant Mills since 1911. Mr. Kimmel has spent a quarter of a century in the iron and steel- business, having begun as an apprentice, and by diligence, faithfulness and exceptional ability of performance has steadily advanced until he now holds one of the important executive positions in Gary industrialism.
Charles P. Kimmel was born at Indianapolis, Indiana, March 29, 1873. had a public school education, and in 1888 entered the service of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company as an apprentice in the machine
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shops. In 1890 he became a roll turner apprentice, and proved himself so useful and competent in that line that by 1897 he had arrived at the position of foreman of the roll turning shop. Mr. Kimmel has lived at Gary since November, 1908, when he was made superintendent of the roll turning department of the Indiana Steel Company, and three years later advanced to his present position as superintendent of the Merchant Mills.
Mr. Kimmel is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Masonic Order, belongs to the Hammond Country Club, and is a member of the IJamilton Club of Chicago.
JOHN R. MOUNTAIN. Among the many capable industrial execu- tives drawn into Gary life and affairs as a result of the Steel Corpora- tion's enterprise in that city, one who has been on the ground practically since the opening of the steel works, is John R. Mountain, now superin- tendent of one of the departments. Mr. Mountain has been in the business since early boyhood, had his early experiences in the Pittsburgh district, and came from there to Gary.
John R. Mountain was born at Albert Mine in Canada in 1877. In 1884, when he was seven years old, his parents moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. IIis father, who is sixty-one years of age, is general superintendent of the Allen-Wood Iron & Steel Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The public schools of Pittsburgh gave John R. Mountain his early training, and after finishing the high school course he went into the mills, and worked his way up from the ranks to a degree of efficiency where his superiors could depend upon him for not only individual skill but for capable handling of other men. Mr. Mountain was sent to Gary at the opening of the works in 1907 as senior foreman, and was subsequently promoted to his present place as superintendent of a department where he has the supervision of 300 men.
Mr. Mountain married Bertha Stayert of Pittsburgh. They are the parents of three children, the oldest being eight years and the youngest five. His home is at 623 Madison Street. Mr. Mountain has taken an active interest in the Gary Y. M. C. A., and finds much recreation in athletic sports. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and in politics is independent.
ARDEN DEARBEYNE. Among the men who came to Gary at the beginning and were convinced of the great future awaiting this city was Arden Dearbeyne, who, during seven years of residence, has handled real estate to the value of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and is now at the head of the Lake County Realty Company. Mr. Dearbeyne is an interesting example of success won by a foreign-born and reared man who has opposed not only the usual obstacles of comparative poverty, but had to carve his fortune in an entirely new country.
Arden Dearbeyne was born at Smyrna in Asia Minor, Turkey. in 1882. Early in life he became a student of the American College at Smyrna, and after finishing his studies there emigrated to the United States in 1900. The first four years were spent in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he attended normal and business college, working to pay his way through school, and afterwards attended a night school in Chicago. While his home was in Chicago he worked for Len Campbell, and in 1906 was on the ground when the first work was started at Gary, made an investigation and appraisal of the possibilities, and
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returned to stay in March, 1907. For a time Mr. Dearbeyne was employed by the Big Three Realty Company, was assistant manager for Walter S. Rose and later general manager of Mr. Rose's real estate business. In March, 1909, he established the Lake County Realty Company, and has since been in business for himself and enjoys the confidence of the community for his excellent judgment and reliability on all matters touching local real estate.
Mr. Dearbeyne, in 1906, married Isabel Morrison, of a prominent New Orleans family. He takes much interest in fraternal affairs, affiliates with the Masonic Order and the Eastern Star, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America, and the Court of Honor. He is also a member of the Commer- cial Club, and politically is a progressive republican.
WILLIAM F. WALL. While further reference to the public schools of Dyer is found in other pages of this publication, it is necessary to speak of the Dyer IHigh School as an introduction to William F. Wall, who is its efficient principal. The Dyer High School was built in 1898, and is now one of the well equipped schools of the county. There is a staff of five teachers, the enrollment in the high school proper is twenty- seven, with seventy pupils in the grades, and besides the regular cur- riculum special courses are offered in manual training, domestic science and in business and commercial lines. Mr. Wall is a specialist in the teaching of sciences, and since taking charge of Dyer has done much to develop and build up the work of the school and make it a center of community life.
William F. Wall was born in Highland, Wisconsin, March 18, 1889, received his education chiefly at the Notre Dame University near South Bend, Indiana, having three years there, besides two summers in the University of Wisconsin. He has the degree bachelor of philosophy. Mr. Wall is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus and Modern Wood- men of America, and is a Roman Catholic. Since his school and college days he has retained a fondness for outdoor sports.
FRANK F. HEIGHWAY. The present superintendent of the Lake County public school system is a school man who has been active in his work for nearly thirty years, an experienced educator with practical and progressive ideals, and keenly alive to the needs of modern education and possessed of the ability to make the schools serve its proper end in the scheme of a twentieth century society. The profession of the educator was never more important than at the present time, and it is the fortune of men like Mr. Heighway to contribute no small share in the training of a new generation for the responsibilities of the coming years.
His life began in Kosciusko County, Indiana, September 19, 1865, and his parents were Albert H. and Maria (Smith) Heighway, farming people of Kosciusko County. He grew up on a farm, attended district schools. ard in the intervals of his professional work continued his studies, first at Valparaiso University and late at the University of Chicago. In all his practical work as an educator he has been a close student not merely of books, but of methods and of means for adapting the schools and their instructions to the conditions of their immediate environment and of the social times in which we live. His first experience as a
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teacher was in Fulton County, Indiana, later he was for two years superintendent of schools at Clifton, Kansas, and from 1893 to 1896 was superintendent of the Lowell public schools in Lake County. For eleven years he was superintendent of the city schools of Crown Point, and in 1907 was elected county superintendent. Mr. Heighway holds a life certificate as a teacher from the state, granted in 1895, and is a member of the National Educational Association, the Indiana State Teachers' Association, the National Geographic Society, and various educational and civic and social associations.
Recently there was published a report on the Lake County schools, prepared by Superintendent Heighway. This is one of the most illuminat- ing surveys of a county school system ever issued for the information of the public, and it well merited the favorable comment received from the United States commissioner of education, since the report was in no wise a formal and dry description of school conditions and statistics, but furnished interesting reading to all patrons of the schools and pointed out many lines of improvement for the future. Much of the information contained in that report can be found elsewhere in this history.' Mr. Heighway since taking the office of superintendent has done a great deal to promote the consolidated school idea, and fifteen consolidated schools have been established in Lake County since he first took office.
His whole career has been devoted to educational work, and his education in the higher schools and universities was acquired as a result of means secured by hard work in the schoolroom. Mr. Heighway is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and is a member and trustee of the Presbyterian Church. On December 28, 1893, he married Minnie V. Van Alstine, of Monticello, Indiana. They have one child, Frances Maurine, now a student in the Crown Point High School.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF GARY. Typical of the growth of Gary in every other direction is the remarkable showing made by the First National Bank, which was organized as a pioneer institution and whose resources and service to the business public have grown in proportion to the marvelous expansion of this district. The establishment of a bank at Gary under a national charter was naturally an object for competi- tion among capitalists who had their eyes on Gary at the beginning, and the priority in the matter was won as a result of an application by telegram to the national treasury department for a charter and privilege of organizing the First National Bank of Gary. This telegram was sent by Thomas T. Snell, who is' now the president of the bank. It was Mr. Snell who took the lead and deserves the chief credit for the bank organization. Mr. Snell belongs to the prominent family of bankers of Clinton, Illinois. The bank was organized November 5, 1906, with Mr. Snell as its first cashier, and other interested parties were W. S. Hazelton, J. W. Fieldhouse and E. C. Simpson. In 1906 Mr. Snell was elected president, and Mr. Simpson then became cashier. The initial capital was $25,000, which in 1907 was increased to $50,000; another increase was made in 1908 to $100,000; again the capital was extended in order to meet the demands of the growing business in 1912, when it was increased to $150,000, and by a fourth increase. in 1913, it stands now at $200,000. Besides the capital stock there is a surplus of $50,000, undivided profits of about $12,000, and with deposits upwards of a million and a half of dollars it easily ranks foremost among the banks of Northwestern Indiana. The total resources of the First National
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