USA > Indiana > Elkhart County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Elkhart County, Indiana > Part 72
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HON. CHARLES L. MURRAY.
Hon. Charles L. Murray, the pioneer journalist of Elkhart and Kosciusko counties, was born in 1815, in a small town called Murrays- field in Bradford county, Pennsylvania. His parents were Philadel- phians. He was paternally Scotch and maternally English. His pa- ternal grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary war, and his profession ( religious ) was first a Baptist and then a Universalist min- ister, and he was one of eight brothers who settled in western New York after the Revolution. His maternal grandfather was a Quaker,
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and followed the business of an architect in Philadelphia, where C. L. Murray's parents were born. While the family resided at Athens, on the Susquehanna river, his father was appointed justice of the peace for life, by the governor of Pennsylvania, under the old constitution. Mr. Murray began, about the year 1828, to learn the printer's trade. The paper was published in Towanda, and supported John Q. Adams for president. His brother-in-law. W. Jenkins, leaving Towanda, Mr. Murray went with the family to Huron county, Ohio, where he was engaged in the first anti-Masonic printing office in the state. In 1831 Mr. Jenkins moved the office to Columbus, Ohio, where Mr. Murray followed him as an apprentice.
Completing his trade in 1833, he went west to seek his fortune. Having a relative at Jacksonville, Illinois, on his father's side, Murray McConnel, he worked in that place on a paper published by a Mr. Edwards. Taking the prevailing disease of the country, ague, he re- turned to Columbus, Ohio, by joining his father's nephew in taking a drove of horses through that were being bought for the Philadel- phia market. Mounted on a horse young Murray crossed the state from St. Louis via Vincennes, and in spite of the terrible condition of the roads at that time reached Columbus in safety. Here he again worked for his brother-in-law and became foreman of the office of the Western Hemisphere, the Democratic organ of the state. Young Mur- ray was then in his eighteenth year, and he continued in the employ of the paper until a difficulty arose between him and one of the pro- prietors. Soon afterward the paper changed hands, and its name changed to the Ohio Statesman, where Mr. Murray again accepted a position in the office and continued there until 1834. He then went to Piqua. Ohio, on the solicitation of citizens there, and in company with his brother-in-law. D. P. Espy, established the Piqua Courier. The paper was printed on an old wooden press that had been brought from Philadelphia at an early day. The Courier, with Charles L. Murray as editor, was the first paper in the state which run up the name of General Harrison for president in 1835. Mr. Murray pur- chased the interest of his brother-in-law in 1836.
In July of the same year Mr. Murray married a Kentucky lady. Ann Maria Spriggs. A party of citizens from Goshen, Indiana, solic- ited him to remove to that town, and he accepted the offer, selling the Courier to a Mr. Barrington. In company with Anthony Defrees, of Goshen, Mr. Murray went to Cincinnati and bought an outfit, shipped it to Dayton by canal and the remainder of the way it was transported to Goshen in wagons via Fort Wayne. The first issue of the Goshen Express, C. L. Murray as editor, appeared early in 1837. Mr. Defrees soon sold his interest to Mr. Murray, who continued as its editor at intervals and under different names until 1840. At that period. as a Whig candidate, he was defeated for the auditorship of Elkhart county, the Democrats having a large majority in the county.
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Mr. Murray was appointed postmaster of Goshen under President Har- rison in 1840, and sold his printing office shortly afterward. He was removed from the office during the administration of John Tyler. Hav- ing purchased some land north of Goshen he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, devoting his time during the winter to working at his trade or in reporting the proceedings of the senate for the In- diana State Journal. In 1846 he printed the Republican Monoquet, Kosciusko county. for one year. under an engagement with the land owners there who were trying to locate the county seat. This was the first paper ever printed in the county. From there he moved to Indian- apolis and became assistant editor of the State Journal.
In the fall of the following year he returned to his farm in Elkhart county, where his family resided until 1870, though Mr. Murray was still in the habit of going to Indianapolis to report in the senate, where he served seven sessions in that capacity. In 1859 he was elected by the Republicans joint representative from the counties of Elkhart and LaGrange by a majority of nine hundred. He served through both extra and regular sessions and took an active part in important sub- jects under consideration. In 1860 he was elected to the senate by over twelve hundred majority. He had the advantage of the acquaint- ance of nearly all the public men of Ohio and Indiana. He was purely a self-made man, never having attended school a day after he was eleven years of age.
On the first call of the government for seventy-five thousand men to put down the rebellion he wrote out a muster roll, signed it, placed it in the auditor's office of the county, wrote out and had published in both Goshen papers the first call for volunteers in that city, after which he went out into the townships and made speeches for recruits. After he had raised a sufficient number of men for the company through a call in the papers he met the men at Goshen and placed in nomination a captain and first lieutenant, and leaving them to complete the organ- ization departed for Indianapolis to attend the extra session of the legislature called by Governor Morton to equip the Indiana troops for the three months' service. The quota of troops being filled when the men arrived they were discharged and returned home. Mr. Murray procured a place as private in Captain Mann's company from the city of Elkhart, and when marching orders came left his seat in the senate and boarded a cattle train with the boys one morning after having lain with them on the ground all night near the Union depot After serving the three monthis as a private he returned home and completed his term in the senate. On February 1, 1862. he left Camp Ellis, near Goshen, with the Forty-eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, as quarter- master. and remained with the regiment about two years, until he received his discharge by reason of severe illness that incapacitated him from duty.
In 1870 Mr. Murray sold his farm and removed his family to
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Goshen, where he soon bought a half interest in the Democrat, which paper he edited until the fall of 1877. About that time he moved to South Bend and took charge of the Herald, which plant he had owned for several years previous in partnership with his son, Charles T. Mur- ray. He continued to edit the Herald until he sold the office in the fall of 1880. In 1882, the material of the Herald returning to Mr. Murray under a mortgage and the " good will " of the office having been taken from him through the connivance of the man to whom he had sold the office, whereby he met the first real financial loss during his entire newspaper career, he in company with his two sons, Gordon N. and Harris F., opened a job printing office at South Bend. Having reached that age when mechanical work became burdensome to him he was gratuitously employed as editor of the Sun, a Prohibition organ printed at the job office through arrangements with local adherents of that party. The office was sold during the fall of 1884, and was afterward removed to Indianapolis. At this period Mr. Murray retired from active business iffe, though he continued to contribute to the columns of the New York Foice, Chicago News and other journals over his signature up to within a few months of his death. He died at his home in the city of South Bend July 15, 1889.
It will be seen by this sketch that the subject was closely identified with the early history of Elkhart county and later of St. Joseph county. He was a politician from boyhood and was particularly " at home with his pen " on all political questions and political history of his time. He was counted as one among the most fluent yet vigorous writers in the field of northern Indiana journalism during his newspaper work therein. Mr. Murray was first a Whig, then a Republican from that party's infancy until the time of the " Liberal " movement that followed Horace Greeley. He affiliated with the Democratic party until the Prohibitionists organized in the state, when he adopted that political faith, to which he strictly and conscientiously adhered, and was promi- nent in drafting in a measure that party's state platform in 1888.
GORDON NOEL MURRAY.
Gordon Noel Murray, editor and publisher of the Nappanee New's, which is a monument to his ability and enterprise as a journalist, was born July 22, 1852, at the Murray homestead, in Jefferson township. Elkhart county, being one of six brothers and three sisters. The Mur- ray family has furnished a remarkable record in the field of journalism. The father, C. L. Murray, whose name finds mention repeatedly through the pages of this volume. is the subject of a semrote sketch. And of the brothers, Charles T., Edward and Harris F. are all identified with literary and newspaper interests.
His early years spent on a farm, receiving the e lucation afforded by the country school of that day, at the age of eighteen years the son
9
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Gordon N. accompanied his parents to Goshen, where in 1871 he be- came an apprentice in a machine shop. In 1874 he took up his resi- dence in Sterling. Illinois, and during the following three years had charge of a factory as foreman and was also a commercial salesman. Moving to South Bend, where he followed the vocation of mechanic until the winter of 1877-78. he then entered the mechanical department of the South Bend Herald, which was then published by his brother. Charles T. Murray. The latter returning to Washington, D. C., in the spring of 1878, the Hon. C. L. Murray then sold his interest in the Goshen Democrat and took charge of the South Bend Herald. It was then that young Murray was initiated into the mysteries of journalism, continuing as he did in the capacity of business manager and city editor of the Herald until the spring of 1881, when his father disposed of the Herold. He again entered upon the life of commercial traveler, and in Jume, 1881, married Miss Ellen Niles Taylor, at lonia, Michigan. Under a mortgage the Herald plant reverting to his father, Mr. Mur- ray again returned to the printing business at South Bend in 1882. Forming a partnership with his younger brother, Harris F., and his father, under the firm name of C. L. Murray and Sons, job printers. Mr. Murray completed his trade in the " art preservative."
In the fall of 1884. the job printing office being disposed of and soon falling into the hands of the prominent Prohibitionists of the state, who had formed a stock company to establish a state organ for their party. Mr. Murray became a stockholder in the company and was awarded the contract of moving the plant to Indianapolis, where it was consolidated with that of the Monitor Journal, and there he established the mechanical department of the Indiana Phalan.r. The Phalanr company being unable to continue the salary at which Mr. Murray was employed. he came to Goshen and identified himself with the Daily News, first as solicitor on the road. soon afterward as busi- ness manager of the office, and later became a member of the News Printing Company. He continued there until January, 1888, when he was enabled, through the assistance of Thomas A. Starr, senior editor of the Goshen Vers, to purchase the Nappanee News. He has continued as proprietor and editor of the Vous since 1888, bringing the paper up to its present standard of journalistic excellence. Throughout these years the News has made a record for leading the van of public opinion in all enterprises designed for the public welfare and for con- sistently and continually upholding the dignity and reputation of the town. The mechanical capacity of the office is equal to any in the county, and he has also laid the foundation of a profitable book-store business in connection with the publishing and printing business. Through the enterprise of Mr. Murray the town of Nappanee has been presented a Souvenir Edition. illustrated and descriptive of the busi- ness and professional interests for the year 1905. This handsome mag- azine number, mentioned in connection with the history of the News
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and elsewhere, has received enthusiastic and deserved praise among the people of Nappanee and wherever it has been distributed.
Prominent in social and fraternity affairs, Mr. Murray is a mem- ber of the Knights of Pythias. Knights of the Maccabees, Modern Samaritans and Rathbone Sisters. He has held nearly every office in the subordinate lodge of K. of P .. and was in the office of keeper of records and seal continuously for six years up to January 1, 1905. He was president of the Modern Samaritans two years. Mr. Murray was a member of St. James church at Goshen, and at Nappanee attends divine worship in the Presbyterian church, where he teaches the young people's Sunday-school class.
Mrs. Murray was a daughter of C R. and Martha Jane ( Nicar ) Taylor, the former of New York state. Her mother was a native of Lynchburg. Virginia, her grandmother being a member of the well known Lewellyn family. Mrs. Murray's great-grandmother was Sarah Harrison, cousin of President William Henry Harrison and a niece of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Mr. and Mrs. Murray have two children. John Reed Murray, who was born in Elkhart county February 23, 1885, is a well educated young man and his father's assistant in the conduct of the Votos. The daugh- ter. Mary Taylor Murray, who was born in Goshen March 9. 1887. was one of the attractive girl graduates of the Nappanee high school in 1905. and, like her brother, is a printer and writer for the News. The children are true Murrays in their taste for journalism in its various departments, and are both very highly esteemed in the junior social circles of the town.
GEORGE R. MCMASTERS.
George R. McMasters, who for a number of years has been iden- tified with the business and manufacturing interests of Goshen, is treas- urer of the Goshen Novelty and Brush Company, whose works, located along the canal, are one of the important features of industrial Goshen. From almost a lifelong experience in various branches of manufactur- ing Mr. AlcMasters draws a fund of broad ability and fitness for his present enterprise, and has been one of the men of force behind the present industrial development of his city.
Mr. McMasters comes by his career of mechanical and manufac- turing activity naturally, since his father. Alphonso McMasters, who was born in Canada, also followed various branches of mechanical engineering and like work. The father spent some years in residence in Michigan, and druing the Civil war was first lieutenant of the Mich- igan Engineers. He was killed while working in a factory in Lansing. Michigan. being then sixty-eight years of age. He was of Scotch descent. He married Charlotte Bunnell. who was born in New York state and lived to be about seventy-three years old, and they were the
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parents of four sons and one daughter, all of whom grew to manhood and womanhood.
The oldest of the family, Mr. McMasters was born in Monroe county, New York. Janaury 11, 1849, was educated in the public schools of that state. and at the age of sixteen accompanied his parents to Michigan. He learned the trade of sash and door making. and going to Ligonier, Indiana, was engaged in manufacturing there until his plant was burned out. Mr. McMasters has lived in Goshen since 1892. and on coming here he went into business with Mr. C. L. Lamb. Mr. McMasters was one of the leading promoters and organizers of the Goshen Novelty and Brush Company, and as its treasurer has contrib- mited much of the executive ability to its successful management.
A wide-awake business man, eminently public-spirited, Mr. Mc- Masters has displayed commendable interest in all matters pertaining to the advancement of his city. He is a Republican voter, and fra- ternally is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He married, in 1878. Miss Candace Hart, a daughter of William Hart. deceased, and they have two daughters, Edith and Mayme.
EDWARD B. ZIGLER.
Edward B. Zigler, of the firm of Harman and Zigler, is one of the able young lawyers of Elkhart. Born on a farm in Jefferson town- ship. this county, April 24, 1875, he belongs to one of the oldest fam- ilies of the county, his father and grandfather having been prominently connected with the industrial and public affairs of the county since the thirties.
His grandfather, Benjamin Zigler, was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, was reared and married there, and about 1838 came west and located in Jackson township of Elkhart county, where he bought eighty acres of land covered with dense timber, erected a log house for the use of his family, and in a few years had cleared up and improved his place into a nice farm. Selling it in 1853. he moved into Jefferson township, where his home remained till his death, at the age of seventy years. He had made farming a lifelong vocation, and was successful beyond the average. He was a member of the Lutheran church and always voted the Democratic ticket, at one time having served as trustee of Jefferson township. He married Mary A. Wag- ner, a native of Lebanon county. Pennsylvania, who died in Elkhart township, this county, at the advanced age of eighty-two. They were parents of the following children, seven of whom are living : Elizabeth Judia, of South Bend; David, deceased : Henry, of Goshen ; Louisa Shoup, of Goshen; Andrew, of whom further below ; Jonathan, of Mishawaka: Mary Jane, of Elkhart; Sarah C. Kessler, of Jefferson township.
Andrew Zigler. father of the Elkhart attorney, who has been a
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successful farmer for years and resides on section 26 of Cleveland township, was the fifth child and third son of his parents and was born in Jackson township of this county, August 9, 1845. He was reared and educated in his native township, attending the Goshen schools. and spent the first twenty-one years of his life at home. He alternated between the occupations of teaching in the winter and farming in the summer. In 1866, at the age of twenty-one, he married Lovina Ricks, daughter of John and Eliza A. (Stockham) Ricks. She was born in Allen county, Ohio, and came to Jefferson township, Elkhart county. when four years old. being reared and educated there. After his mar-
Edward B. Zigler.
riage Andrew Zigler moved over to St. Joseph county, where he was engaged in farming and teaching two years, and then returned and located in Jefferson township about three miles north of Goshen. Three years later he bought and moved to a farm of eighty-four acres, which he cultivated until 1900, when he sold and moved into Elkhart. He bought his present farm in 1901 and located on the same in 1904.
Mr. Andrew Zigler has manifested much interest in public affairs. He served as assessor of Jefferson township nine years, and is the present trustee of Cleveland township, having been elected to the office in 1904. He is a prosperous and successful farmer, his estate com- prising one hundred and sixteen acres, and in civic and material affairs
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he has been an important factor. He had three children: Carry, the (leceased wife of George Stauffer; Ira Elbert, who is registry clerk in the Elkhart postoffice, a position he has held eleven years; and Ed- ward B.
Edward B. Zigler spent his boyhood and youth on the farm, and his education was obtained in the country schools and at Valparaiso. .At the age of seventeen he began teaching country school and con- tinmed that vocation three years. His law studies in the meantime had already been begun first in the scientific department at Valparaiso Normal and then in the law department of that institution. He was admitted to the bar March 8, 1898, and at once began practice in Elk- hart, where he has built up a large and profitable business. Ilis part- nership with Mr. Harman began on January 1, 1902, and this is now one of the well known legal firms of the county.
Fraternally Mr. Zigler affiliates with the Benevolent and Protec- tive Order of Elks, with the Knights of Pythias and with the Modern Woodmen of America. He and his wife are Methodists. He mar- ried, November 27. 1895, Miss Maud E. Rice, of this county, and they have one son, Arthur E.
CHARLES MUTSCHLER.
Charles Mutschler, a member of the Coppes, Zook & Mutschler Company of Nappanee and assistant manager of the furniture depart- ment of the company, is a young business man whose connection with the manufacturing affairs of the county has given him deserved promi- nence among the men who are responsible for the development and progress of the county along these lines.
The fifth child in the family of George and Sarah ( Froelich) Mutschler, well known citizens of the county whose lives are sketched elsewhere in this volume, Mr. Mutschler was born at the old home in Millersburg, this county, May 11, 1876, and was reared and edu- cated in his native town and in Goshen. He began preparation for the law, pursuing his studies along that line for two years in the Uni- versity of Indiana, but at the end of that time turned his attention to business life, taking the position of bookkeeper for the Nappanee Fur- niture Company in 1896. He was with them two years, and in 1898 tock charge of the Union Canning Company of Nappanee. When, several years later, the Nappanee Furniture Company and the Coppes Brothers and Zook Company consolidated as the Coppes, Zook & Mutschler Company, he became a member and director in the business and also assistant manager of the furniture department. He has amply demonstrated his fitness for business life and for the position he holds, which is a very responsible one, his company being employers of three hundred persons in the various departments.
Mr. Mutschler is a Democrat in politics and is affiliated with the
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Knights of Pythias fraternity. He married, June 10, 1901, Miss Della Coppes, who is the daughter of S. D. and Elizabeth ( Berlin ) Coppes. Their marriage has been blessed with two children, Helen E. and Sarah I.
JOHN D. COPPES.
John D. Coppes, vice president of the Coppes, Zook & Mutschler Company at Nappanee, has been identified with manufacturing enter- prises since he was eighteen years old. He has spent practically all his life in this county. and is one of the able men who have been at the foundation of Nappanee's prosperity as a commercial and industry center. The enterprising spirit of the Coppes family can be traced in almost every important business or public institution of Nappanee, and the family name has that dignity and stability of character which is fitting in a house of such long and prominent standing in the com- munity.
Mr. Coppes, who was born in Jackson township, this county, Aug- ust 14, 1856, was the ninth child in the family of Jacob D. Coppes, who was born and married in Pennsylvania, and thence moved to Ohio and from there became one of the early settlers of Elkhart county. At the time of his arrival Goshen was a village of log houses, so that the family history goes back to the early days of this county. He was a farmer by occupation, and bought considerable land in Elkhart township and improved a fine farm. He died at the age of sixty-one, in 1873. His father Samuel was also born in Pennsylvania, and died in Ohio, being of German descent according to the best information. The mother of John D. Coppes was Sarah Fravel before her marriage, and she was born in Pennsylvania and lived to be about seventy-seven years old, she being also of German descent. They were the parents of ten children, two of whom died in infancy, while the rest grew to adult years.
Mr. Coppes had a common school education such as has helped many a boy on the road to success, and when he was nineteen years old he began an independent business career. At that age he started one of the first sawmilis at Nappanee. and has been identified with the manufacturing affairs of this part of the county ever since. His fur- niture plant, planing mill and box factory was bought, three years later, by J. C. Mellinger and Company, which existed about eight years, and then Mr. Coppes' brother Samuel bought out the Mellinger interests. and the firm was then known as the Coppes Brothers for a time. Mr. Coppes also in the meantime had interests in the Nappanee Furniture Company. In 1891 Mr. Zook purchased the share of Samuel Coppes. and for ten years the different enterprises were conducted under the name of Coppes Brothers and Zook, until the organization, in 1901, of the Coppes, Zook & Mutschler Company, the most extensive manu- facturing concern in Nappanee. Under this firm name are conducted
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