USA > Indiana > Adams County > Biographical and historical record of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : Containing portraits of all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with accompanying biographies of each : a condensed history of the state of Indiana : portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Adams and Wells counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families, and a concise history of the counties and their cities and villages, pt. 2 > Part 9
USA > Indiana > Wells County > Biographical and historical record of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : Containing portraits of all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with accompanying biographies of each : a condensed history of the state of Indiana : portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Adams and Wells counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families, and a concise history of the counties and their cities and villages, pt. 2 > Part 9
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
At the November term, 1870, James Gil- len was tried for the murder of William J. McCleery, but was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary for twelve years. It was a case that created great ex-
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citement and much interest, and was ably conducted by both sides, but as most of the aetors in that forensie contest are yet living, the writer deems it proper not to particular- ize in the matter. The usually quiet and law-abiding county of Wells has been at times under great commotion by reason of homicides in her midst. In late years John Strode was tried for the murder of Daniel Miller, an old pioneer of the county; Mary M. Eddingfield for the alleged poisoning of her children; Frank Hoopengarner for kill- ing Needham MeBride; George W. King for killing Martin Thayer, and William Walker for slaying George Shaw. Some of these cases were of great moral turpitude, and are a blotch upon the otherwise fair escuteleon of the county; but a portion of the cases had many extenuating cireum- stanees, and in the ease of Hoopengarner the jury wisely found it to be one of justifiable homicide. The actors in these contests are nearly all upon the stage, and for the reasons heretofore stated we will not individualize in reference to them. Under the present Con- stitution we had the-anomaly, from 1853 to 1873, of a Court of Common Pleas erected and organized with almost concurrent jurisdiction with the Circuit Court, and during its existence it contained the following officers: Wilson B. Loughridge was judge from its organiza- tion to January, 1861, when he was succeeded by Joseph Brackenridge. James W. Borden became judge in January, 1865, and continued until January, 1868, when Robert S. Taylor, one of the learned and best equipped attor- neys of this State, was commissioned his successor. David Studabaker sneceeded him in January, 1869, but resigned in September, 1869, and Robert S. Taylor was then re- appointed by Governor Baker. In January, 1871, William W. Carson became judge, and in January, 1873, Samuel E. Sinclair was com-
missioned and held the office until it was abolished as a needless expense about three months thereafter. The prosecutors of this court were Benediet Burns, Newton Burwell, James G. Smith, David T. Smith, David Colerick, Joseph S. Dailey and Benjamin F. Ibach.
During the first thirty years of our county's history the business transactions were small, and one order book of this court embraces all the eivil and criminal causes there tried from its organization up to and including the Jan- uary term, 1859. During the subsequent period of our jurisprudence several parties were admitted to the bar, and for a time were engaged as counsel here, who no longer re- spond to the roll call. Among these were Thomas A. R. Eaton, now on the retired list, but an excellent eitizen of the county, and William J. Bright, who edited the Wells County Union. He was " bright" by name and nature, but died at the beginning of his career in our midst. In 1863 Daniel J. Callen, an eloquent orator and "word-painter," eame and practiced here, but soon returned to his native State, Ohio, which he for a time served with distinction in her legislative councils. Mr. Callen has been in his grave for the last decade. Benjamin G. Shinn, now a prominent lawyer of Hartford City, was admitted to the praetice here on Septem- ber 19, 1865. Ilon. Daniel Waugh, present judge of the Tipton and Howard cireuit, was admitted May 22, 1866, with the well-known Jacob J. Todd, and James A. Cotton May 20, 1867. William J. Davis, a graduate of Washington College, Pennsylvania, located here and was admitted to the bar in 1871, and Captain William J. Hilligass in the year succeeding. Joseph W. Ady, who now en- joys a State-wide reputation in Kansas, was raised in Wells County, and admitted to the bar, but shortly after this event obeyed the
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injunction of the white-hatted philosopher who said, " Young man, go West."
Our present bar comprises more than one- half of all the members who ever engaged as resident attorneys at this place, and embraces the names of Edwin R. Wilson, David T. Smith, Joseph S. Dailey, Jacob J. Todd, Levi Moek, Augustus N. Martin, ex-reporter su- preme court, John K. Rinehart, James P. Ilale, A. L. Sharpe, J. II. C. Smith, Ilomer L. Martin, Edwin C. Vaughn, Charles M. France, Mines W. Lee, George W. Kimble, David HI. Swaim, William T. T. Swaim, Win. S. Silver, Asbury Duglay, Abram Sim- mons, Luther B. Simmons and Charles E. Lacey; and without particularizing or making any invidions distinctions, the writer with confidence states that this list comprises a galaxy of attorneys as well equipped for the great work of the profession as can be found in any county of Indiana.
Since the influx of railroads into the county in the autumn of 1869 the county has more than doubled in population and tripled in material wealth; 2 000 miles of open ditches have been constructed and many of turnpikes.
All kinds of commercial pursnits are being actively conducted, and the county is rapidly gaining a front rank as an educated, enterprising and public-spirited locality; and as a result of the growth and development of her material interests much litigation has necessarily followed in the last fifteen years. But the Wells County bar have been equal to the emergency, fully qualified for the great work they have been called upon to perform, and in their efforts to establish rights and redress wrongs they have been aided at all times by an intelligent and incorruptible judi- ciary.
MEDICAL HISTORY OF WELLS COUNTY.
BY C. T. MELSHEIMER, M. D.
The profession of medicine, like her twin sisters, law and theology, as a consequence has its origin in human misfortune, and all are designed to relieve the various ills that have their emse in some moral or physical transgression. Savage nations have their sachems, prophets and great medicine men, whose duty it is to look after the interests of their tribe, while civilized nations do the same under the more learned ministrations of medicine, law and theology. Ilence wher- ever civilization advances, it has its advance guard of physicians, lawyers and ministers to keep it in the straight path of physical and moral rectitude.
The medical history of any place would not prove very satisfactory to the general reader, unless it embraced a brief history of the topography, together with its elimate and the manners and customs of the inhabitants. The inducements which nature held out to the first settlers of Wells County were a vast, slightly undulating surface, rich in organic deposits, and elothed (with a few exceptions) in a heavy growth of decidnons trees, em- bracing pretty much every variety usually found in the North temperate climate, of which the hardier variety, growing mostly upon the uplands, while those of the sotter woods on the low. A few wet prairies formed the exception, and these no doubt in the early history of the country were so many superfi- cial lakes. They were covered with a very rank growth of aquatic vegetation, whose annual destruction contributed to a rien de- posit of organic matter, that has since been converted into fruitful fields by the hand of improvement. It has a drift formation vary- ing from a few feet in thickness on the creek and river bottoms, to sixty or seventy on the
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mplands, and is underlaid with the various qualities of limestone, as shown from the re- cent borings for gas and oil in the city of Bluffton, ending in salt water, instead of gas or oil.
The drainage of the county is dependent npon the Wabash and Salamonie rivers and their numerous tributaries. The former tray- erses the county from a southeast direction, through the townships of Harrison, Lancaster and Rock Creek, and the latter somewhat paral- lel through the townships of Chester and Jack. son, in the southwest part of the county, while Rock Creek, the principal tributary of the Wabash River, runs near midway between. All their tributaries have their origin in the many " swails or slashes " (as they are termed in the local dialeet of the county) that studs its surface, and are very meandering in their course to the rivers. Their water supply is purely of a surface character, mostly made up of what the earth fails to absorb during con- tinnons rainfalls. Before thorough drainage changed their condition they were filled to overtlow during the winter and spring; later on their contents were heated by the summer sun and evaporation, together with some degree of imperfeet drainage, reduced their contents to a minimum. As a natural result, this con- dition was fatal to the smaller vegetation, as well as the myriads of microbes and larger aquatic animals that usually infest such damp places. The result of this soon became a putrid mass of vegeto-animal matter, whose emanations freighted the air with a canse that not only produced disease, but also death in many instances to the hardy settler.
However limited our knowledge is in re- gard to what marsh miasm is, whether gas eous, meteoric, vegeto-animal, or vegetable spores, as some elaim, the fact remains patent that it requires a temperature of sixty degrees and upward, a s il rich in organic elements,
and a sufficient amount of moisture to gen- crate a canse that will always weaken and retard the efforts of the pioneer to pave the way for a higher civilization in a fertile country. There is no other cause that will produce so many pathological deviations as this has done in times past, before the hand of improvement sapped its strength, and re- dneed it from a primal canse to an unim- portant factor in the complication of other diseases as we see it to-day. Its effects were impartially distributed, neither age, sex or condition were spared its inflietions. The springtime of life, the summer of manhood, and the autumn of hoary age, were equally alike the subject of its visitations. It had no limit to its pathological range, from the simplest intermittent down to the deadly algid, and from the harmless remittent to' that of a malignant or pernicious type, that frequently ended in sudden death. In some instances the stomach and bowels received the shock, and produced gastro-enterie hem- orrhages that threatened the life of the patient, for the time being. In others the eranial nerves received the brunt that conveyed the impression of an acute attack of meningitis. While in others again, a coma so profound was developed suggesting a fatal ease of ap- oplexy, while yet in others a gentle sopo- rifie condition was wrought simnlating a traneed state resembling death, by the appar- ent suspension of all functional movements. Such and many more uneommon deviations might be noticed as falling under the obser- vations of those physicians who first aided in the development of this country.
The old settler's improvement, or rather elearings, as they were called, rarely exceeded a few aeres in extent, with the primitive log eabin somewhere near the centre and a log stable off to one side. It was nothing but a mere hole or opening in the forest that per-
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mitted the heat of the summer's sun to reach the earth and warm it, and the air enelosed within. As the latter became heated it also became buoyant through rarifaction, as- eended upward, leaving a partial vacuum, which was filled by the cooler air of the surrounding forest in the daytime. While toward the approach of night, with the de- clining sun, evaporation was partially stayed, a thin vaporons eloud was formed which covered the entire improvement like a blanket sus- pended a few feet above the earth's surface. In most instanees in which the settler was located the soil was so constantly saturated with moisture that a shallow excavation lined with a few feet of Sycamore gum furnished an ample supply of water. During the win- ter's cold it answered every purpose, but as warm weather approached there was an inereased demand for its use which was not so satisfactory. It had lost its refrigerating qualities, and its warmth had developed a disagreeable brackish taste that no species of filtration could remove. In this condition some boiled it, and after it settled, used it, and considered this made quite an improve- ment npon the original, and no doubt but what it was, as it destroyed all the gerins and microbes that an open soil failed to retain.
It was from such conditions that malaria gathered strength, and became the primal cause in the genesis of disease that gave to the fertile valleys of the Manmee and Wabash the unsavory reputation of the white man's necropolis.
Every returning summer and fall the settler was harassed by the effects of this concealed foe, whose power was continually strengthened by the addition of every acre to his improvement. The only alternative for him was to bear his inflictions with all his patience until the autumnal frosts destroyed the cause.
Notwithstanding all their sufferings from sickness, and the various annoyances attend- ant upon the first settling of the country, they were the proper persons for the occasion. And while it is true that many fell in their meritorious efforts to pave the way to a higher eivilization, the seeds then sown have taken deep root and furnished a prolific har- vest for the enjoyment of their stalwart sons and daughters of to-day. As a general thing, history will record the fact that they were friendly in all their social relations, profuse in their hospitality, generous to a fault, and honest in the discharge of their duty. They were-
"No slaves to sect, no secret road they trod, But looked through nature up to nature's God."
The doctor was a kind of medical non- descript in comparison with the members of the profession to-day. As a general thing he had the greater part of his life's works before him, was full of energy, and possessed a surplus of vitality that required just such environments to keep him within the bounds of moral reetitude. Ile was very courteons to his patients, so mueh so, to all who were old enough were dignified as uncles and aunts and few of the elders received the honors of grandparents. He had sehooled himself for coolness and deliberation amidst all the excite- ments from accidents " by flood or field." Whatever misfortunes occurred were viewed as unavoidable under the circumstances, so far as he was concerned. With him the past was beyond his recall, the future he knew nothing about, but the ever present was his, and he utilized it in snel a manner as to give the most satisfactory results. Ile was from the very nature of his surroundings a eon- eentrated embodiment of all the specialties so markedly characteristic of the profession to-day, and was compelled to assume the
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role of physician, surgeon, obstetrician, den- tist, aurist, oculist and if there had been occasion for the gynecologist this would have been added as an appendix to his other duties. These various callings of his required quite a collection of drugs to meet the demands, and together with a certain degree of self-reliance which isolation imparts, made him master of the situation in a vast majority of instanees. When contemplating a visit in the country, which was a daily occurrence, he meant rough business and was prepared for it. Hence his usual outfit was an old slonched hat or cap, that had borne the brunt of many exposures, adorned his head, while the lower extremities were encased in a pair of coarse stogy boots, and the ever present green flannel Jeggings, as further protection against mud and water, together with the compulsory spur attached to the heel, were the outfits. The protection of his body by some species of mathematical adaptability was made equal to the extremes, and the result was a kind of an object that required a rapid evolution of Darwinism to bring him up to the present regulation standard. . Thus equipped and armed with a portly pair of pill bags, he started on horse-back upon his humane mis- sion, over wagon traeks, along bridle paths, through slashies of water and mud midsides deep, and not unfrequently with no other directions then the blazed traek to the lonely cabin in the forest. At night the hickory bark torch or the punctured tin lantern lighted with a tallow dip furnished a frail substitute for the light of the sun.
Thus in brief you have the biography of a pioneer physician from the pen of a junior member who participated in the events which the mutations of time had wrought some forty-three years ago, and were shronded in the obseurities of the past until resurrected by one who stands a representative of that 37
period without a constitueney. In the provi- dence of God all his co-laborers have laid down their burdens, and joined their kindred spirits across the dark waters of Lethe.
The contrast between the past and the present is so great that its reality appears " like the baseless fabric of a vision that leaves no trace behind." The steady hand of improvement has measurably destroyed the canse that annually furnished a very prolitie harvest of miasmatic diseases to the physician. So, too, the wilderness has been converted into many fruitful fields. The old eabin, that virtue of pioneer necessity, has long since given place to the more pretentious dwellings. An inereasing commerce has demanded gravel roads instead of wagon tracks and bridle paths. And the intercourse of the outer world is maintained by railroads and tele- graphs, through which distance is diminished by the locomotive's flight and time annihil- ated by the electric flash. Numerous villages have sprung up as if by the hand of the magician, and the country is teeming with an intelligent and enterprising population that thus far has kept step in the progressive march of the nineteenth century.
MEDICAL CHRONOLOGY.
The first physician in the chronologieal order was Dr. John Knox, who immigrated to Wells County in 1829 and located near Murray on the farm subsequently owned by Henry Miller.
The second physician was Dr. Williams, located in the village of Murray in 1838. By what few settlers that neighborhood con- tained he had the reputation of being a suc- eessful practitioner. His death occurred a few years afterward in that place.
The third in the county was Dr. William Fellows, a regnlar practitioner, who was lo- cated some two miles south of Bluffton in
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1838, on the farm now owned by David Stndabaker.
The first epidemie of typhoid fever oc- curred in the fall and winter of 1845.
The first epidemie of scarlet fever occurred in the latter part of June, 1849.
First case of cholera (Asiatic), Angust 9, 1849, imported from Huntington, Indiana.
First epidemic of measles in September, 1849.
First case of small pox in June, 1854, at Bluffton.
First epidemie of diphtheria in June, 1855.
The first and only colored child born in the county was that of John Waterman's, a colored barber, who resided in a small dwell- ing north of the Deam block, on Main street, July 20, 1880.
WELLS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
BY G. E. FULTON.
The Wells County Medical Society was organized April 9, 1878, with the following physicians as its officers: C. T. Melsheimer, President; T. II. Crosbie, Secretary; Theo. Horton, Treasurer; B. F. Cummins, W. R. S. Clark and L. A. Spaulding, Censors. A consti- tution and by-laws were framed and adopted and such articles of incorporation were filed and recorded within the records of Wells County. The organization adopted the code of ethics of the American Medical Associa- tion, and is auxiliary to the Indiana State Medical Society, to which it sends at each annual meeting delegates to represent the county society, who are thereby entitled to a voice in all the deliberations of that body.
The object of this society is to provide an organization through which the "regular physicians " of the county may be united in one professional fraternity for the purpose of
giving frequent and decided expression of the views and objects of the medical profes- sion; to develop more efficient means than we have had hitherto for cultivating and raising to a higher plane the standard of medieal knowledge; for exciting and encour- aging emulation and unity of purpose among the members; for enlightening and directing public opinion in reference to the duties, re- sponsibilities and requirements of medical men; and for the promotion of all measures calculated to ameliorate the suffering and to improve the health and protect the lives of the community.
The society does not embody a large'mem- bership, there being an average of from thir- teen to fifteen members, owing to deaths, removals, etc. Being composed of the lead- ing physicians of the county it is as live and active, according to its numbers, as any like organization in the State.
The meetings of the society are held in Bluffton on the second Tuesday of each month. A standing invitation toattend each meeting is always gratuitonsly published by the press of Bluffton to all who may desire an examination and the advice of the members free, in response to which numerons persons from all parts of the county attend the meet- ings and embrace the opportunity of benefits tendered. A prominent feature is the prep- aration and reading of original papers or essays on subjects pertaining to the science of medicine by the members in turns as their names occur on the roll in alphabetical order. Following the delivery of such papers is a rigid discussion, approving or disapprov- ing the respective merits of each.
Every organization, like every household, has its visitations of gloom-days when the Gun does not rise to shine on the surround- ings just as it did before-here we pause, and drop the sympathetic tear in memory of those
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who on earth have applied their last healing unetion !!
Two of the charter members have passed away by death.
Dr. T. II. Crosbie was born April 2, 1818, in Washington County, Pennsylvania, died February 21, 1883, in Bluffton, Indiana. When four years old he moved to Wayne County, Ohio, where he remained until 1848, when he settled in the practice of medicine in Bluffton, Indiana. In October, 1861, he entered the Forty-seventh Regiment Indiana Volunteers as a private, but was soon ap- pointed Hospital Steward, and afterward As- sistant Surgeon of the regiment, from which position he was honorably discharged in De- eember, 1864.
Dr. Crosbie was a graduate of Willoughby Medical College; was a man of few words, but a close student and a careful and sneeess- ful practitioner. IIe was a member of this society from its earliest date until his death.
Dr. W. R. S. Clark was born in 1820, and died July 20, 1882, in BInffton, Indiana. IIe took his literary course in Kenyon and Western Reserve Colleges, of Ohio, gradn- ating from the latter. He began the study of medieine with his father in 1837, and
graduated at Willoughby Medical College, Ohio, in 1842. He practiced medieine in Grafton, Litchfield, Ashland and Bucyrus, Ohio, and entered the army in 1861 as As- sistant Surgeon of the Twenty-fourth Ohio, and was mustered ont in 1864 as Surgeon of the Sixty-fourth Ohio. In 1865 he engaged in the drug business in Des Moines, Iowa, and in 1873 removed to Bluffton, Indiana, and practiced up to near his death.
Dr. Clark was first married to Miss Fran- ees C. Parsons, of Edinburg, Ohio, who died in 1862, having lost her two children by death. In June, 1865, he married Mrs. Ade- line Slanker. IIe was an active member of this society from its formation until his death.
It is earnestly hoped that the future of this society will be marked by its keeping abreast with whatever progress flows from the foun- tains of wisdom in the medical world, and that the afflicted may continue to come and drink thereof and be healed.
The present officers of the society are as follows: L. A. Spalding, President; G. E. Fulton, Secretary; M. N. Newman, Treas- urer; C. T. Melsheimer, L. Mason and J. W. Crum, Censors.
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THE PRESS.
HE people of Wells County have had a local paper ever since the year 1847. In that year the first news- * paper in the county was established, by Thomas Smith, a Mexican war veteran. The paper was Democratic, and named the Republicun Bugle. It was, of course, a small sheet, was printed in large type, on a Ramage (wooden) press, but being started at a premature stage of the settlement of the country, it failed to receive sufficient support, and was suspended after an existence of about two years. Probably every village in the Great West has been the scene of such premature newspaper enterprises. From this paper we have gleaned a few inter- esting items, which we have incorporated in the political chapter, and under the head of Bluffton. Early papers, however, gave but very little local news. It was not the fashion
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