USA > Indiana > Washington County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Harrison County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Crawford County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Clark County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Scott County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Floyd County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Jennings County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
USA > Indiana > Jefferson County > Biographical and historical souvenir for the counties of Clark, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Jefferson, Jennings, Scott, and Washington, Indiana > Part 33
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COL. JOHN N. INGRAM was born in Jefferson county, Ind., Nov. 29, 1825. His father, James Ingram, was a native of Old- ham county, Ky, and came over and settled in Jefferson county, Ind., in 1816, the year the State was admitted into the Union. His father was a prominent farmer of his county, and died in 1826, at the age of thirty-six years. His mother, Nancy (Austin) Ingram, died in 1866. Col. In- gram was brought up upon his father's farm, doing farm work and getting such education as was afforded by the common schools of the county at that time, during his boyhood days. After the battle of Palo Alto and Raseca de la Palma and the Con- gress had declared war against the Repub- lic of Mexico in 1846, he entered as a pri- vate in Company G, in the Third Regiment of Indiana Volunteers for twelve months, under Col. James H. Lane. While in the service he was in the celebrated battle of Buena Vista, where old Santa Ana, the Mexican General, with his twenty-two thousand regular troops, was so gloriously whipped by less than one-fourth of that number of raw militia. This battle made General Taylor its commander and hero President in 1848. After he had served out his full time he was sent home with his
Regiment, and honorably discharged in 1847. At the time of his enlistment he was still an apprentice to the tanner's trade, and as soon as he was returned to civil life he went back and served out the full term of his apprenticeship. In 1848 he cameto Jeffersonville and engaged in the tanning business, and has continued in that busi- ness until this time, and has succeeded fairly well in establishing a paying invest- ment in it. His year's service in the Mexi- can war gave him a fancy for military ser- vice, and in 1859, two years before the Re- bellion, he organized, and was elected its captain, a company of Independent Militia. In 1862, when it was thought that it was necessary to establish home protection against rebel raids, Col. Ingram was authorized by Gov. Morton to organize a regiment, to be known as the Indiana Le- gion, of which he was appointed colonel, so it will be seen that he is legitimately en- titled to the honorable prefix of Colonel to his name. He has always been quite prominent in the management and admin- istration of the municipal affairs of the city of Jeffersonville. He was elected in 1856 to the Common Council from the Second Ward and served two years. In 1865 he was elected a member of the Common Council from the First Ward and served two years, and again from the same ward from 1877 to 1879. He has always had the confidence of the people. He has always taken the greatest interest in the public schools of his city. He was elected school trustee in 1863, and has continu- ously held it ever since, by re-election every three years, and has been treasurer during most, if not all, of that time. He is also one of the trustees of the Walnut Ridge Cemetery, He is one of the charter members of Tabor Lodge, No. 92, I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the
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Golden Cross. He is a member of the Wall Street Methodist Episcopal Church of his city, and is now, and has been for thirty years, one of its stewards. He has been a member of the Methodist Church for over forty-four years. Col. Ingram was married in 1850 to Miss Margaret E. Mc- Gonnigal, of Clark county, Ind. They have four living children,-James A., John D., Libbie and Ella. James A. is an employe in the Quarter Master's Depot in Jefferson- ville, John D. is a clerk in the office of the Ohio Falls Car Company, Ella is the wife of Frank B. Willey of the firm of Coots & Willey, in the furniture and undertaking business. Daniel McGonnigal, the father of Mrs. Ingram, was born in 1800, and is now in the 89th year of his age. He re- sides in the family of Col. Ingram and has since the year 1863. He is hearty, and frequently walks to the city over a mile's distance. He cast his first presidential vote for General Jackson in 1824, when he was defeated by a combination of Adams and Clay, and has voted the Democratic ticket for every Democratic candidate since. He is a native of Pennsylvania and came to Indiana in 1834, and, being a carpenter and car builder, built the first car that ever ran over the J., M. & I. Road.
Col. Ingram is one of the very best citi- zens in the community where he resides. His heart is in the right place and his hand is ever open to the suffering and the needy.
WILLIAM S. JACOBS was born on his father's farm in Utica township, Clark county, Ind., Nov. 18, 1823, and lived there with his father and worked on the farm during the crop season. Was sent to the common school of his district. Dur- ing the years 1846 and 1847 he attended Asbury University-now the DePauw Uni-
versity-at Greencastle, Ind. He was a classmate of Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, who is now a United States Senator from the State of Indiana, and John W. Ray, of Indianapolis, who is treasurer of the De- Pauw University. After leaving school he returned home and taught a district school for two years. How many of our business men commenced life by teaching school until they acquired their profession or until something more promising in the way of profits turned up.
On November 19, 1847, the twenty-fourth anniversary of his birth, he was mar- ried to Miss Zerelda E. Thompson, the daughter of Joshua Thompson, one of the earliest settlers of Silver Creek township, and one of its most prominent farmers, and died at the advanced age of ninety- one years. Her mother was of the Red- man family, who was of a prominent fam- ily in this county at that time. In the fall of 1848 he moved to Jeffersonville and . engaged as a clerk for W. & H. Mabury, who were leading grocerymen here at that time and were active and prominent in getting the J., M. & I. Railroad here. He contin- ued with this firm some eighteen months, after which, in 1850, he entered a copart- nership with Benjamin F. Dyer and com- menced the grocery business under the firm name of Jacobs & Dyer. This firm lasted and continued in business for ten and one-half years, when it dissolved and sold out to Meyers & Twomey.
At this time the War of the Rebellion was being waged with vigor, which neces- sitated a great deal of transferring of goods and materials of war between the two sec- tions, and he thought he saw a good open- ing, and entered into the transfer business between the J., M. & I. Railroad and Lou- isville parties. He established an inde- pendent transfer of packet wagons line
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between the railroads and Louisville and he did a big business, and made large prof- its. The transfer business continued good until after the construction of the Louis- ville and Jeffersonville bridge, when the cars were run over the bridge directly to Louisville. He, however, continued in the transfer business until 1875. In this year, on the 23d day of August, he bought out Leviston Patterson's coal business and went into that, and has been in it ever since, doing as large a coal business as any other firm in the city. Whatever Mr. Jacobs undertakes he gives it his close and vigilant attention, and he makes it a suc- cess.
He has but one living son, Emmons B. Jacobs, who is a clerk with him in the coal trade. He is a married man and resides in the city of Jeffersonville. He had a son, Charles R. Jacobs, who died in March, 1882, leaving a wife and a daughter. His ยท son's widow was Jennie Smart and her daughter's name is Mary E. They are now residing at Indianapolis.
He is a member of the Methodist Church, and has been since he was sixteen years old. He is an active member of the Wall Street Church of this city, and has taken a prominent part in its success, having acted, for many years, as a member of its official board, and is now treasurer of the Wall Street Sunday-school. He has been a member of an Odd Fellows Lodge since 1851, and has been treasurer of his lodge for over thirty years, and was in considera- tion of their high appreciation of his ser- vices presented with a gold-headed cane by his lodge in 1871. He is also a mem- ber of Bain Commandery of the Golden Cross.
William S. Jacobs is a son of Solomon and Elizabeth (Swartz) Jacobs, both of whom are natives of Clark county. His
Grandfather Jacobs was a native of the State of Maryland, but came from North Carolina to Clark county, Ind., in 1801, when the Great Northwest was yet little better than a vast wilderness. He was a brick moulder by trade, and he manufac- tured brick in Louisville, Ky., in 1801 and 1802. He died in 1824. He raised a large family of children, mostly boys, who settled on farms in Utica township, in the neighborhood where they were raised, mak- ing, of themselves, quite a settlement. His father, Solomon Jacobs, one of the large family of brothers, became a prominent farmer of the county and died in 1856 or 1857, at the age of 66 years. His mother, surviving her aged companion but a short time, died in 1858 or 1859, at the same age, that of 66 years. His Grandfather Swartz was a native of Pennsylvania and came to Indiana in 1812, and was a farm- er of Utica township. He was killed by a runaway team, where Port Fulton, Ind., is now located, in 1824 or 1825. He was thrown from the saddle horse with such violence that he was killed. His father, Solomon Jacobs, was said to be a natural mechanic, and was a local preacher in the Methodist Church. He would cultivate his farm during the week, and would preach to his neighbors on Sundays when the circuit preacher was not present. In those days the people were not accommo- dated with regular preaching of the gospel by the regular ministry, every service, every Sabbath. The itinerancy of the Methodist minister at that time was a re- ality, and the itinerants could only get round to their scattered charges sometimes only once a month, their circuits were so large, and local preaching became a relig- ious necessity.
Mr. Jacobs is one of the foremost men of his city in the promotion of the inter-
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ests of the city and the best interests of the community. He is a good business man and does business on the square.
JOHN ALBERT JENKINS was born in the city of New Albany, Ind., Floyd county, on the 12th of June, 1856. He is the son of John W. Jenkins and Mahala Jenkins, of Clark county, Ind., and of Breck- enridge county, Ky. His grandfather Jenkins emigrated from Virginia to this county early in the present century.
He had served as a soldier in the Revolu- tionary War, and helped to achieve the independence of this country. He settled in Silver Creek township, near the present village of Hamburg. His father, John W. Jenkins, resided in the city of New Albany, where he carried on the shoemaker's trade, where he died in 1859.
Subsequently his family removed to Clark county, and lived on a farm near the town of Sellersburg, a village on the J., M. & I. R. R. about nine miles north of the city of Jeffersonville. In the public schools of Silver Creek township, and later in the public schools of the city of Jeffersonville, he acquired all the education he received. He resided in the territory of Dakota dur- ing the years 1879 and 1880.
On the 15th day of December, 1880, he was married to Miss Dollie Ogden, daughter of B. A. Ogden, Esq., of the city of Jeffer- sonville. Four children have been born to them, two of whom are living. In 1880 he went into the office, a clerk of the Louis- ville & Nashville Railroad, and remained in its employ until 1884. In that year he received the appointment of deputy, under John L. Delahunt, auditor of Clark county, and served in that capacity for one year, when he was appointed deputy under Charles S. Hay, sheriff of Clark county, and served in that office until at the April
election, 1885, he was elected township assessor for Jeffersonville township for four years, which after one year's service, he resigned to accept the office of deputy treasurer under A. W. Suntha, county treasurer, in which responsible position he is now employed.
Although Mr. Jenkins is yet a young man, he has established a reputation for honesty and strict integrity, and enjoys the respect of all who know him.
JOHN R. LANCASTER, Boot and Shoe Merchant on Spring street, Jeffersonville, was born in the northeast part of the State of Indiana, January 14, 1853. He was raised and worked on a farm until 1870, and during the winter months at- tended the public schools of his county, when he came to Jeffersonville and engaged as clerk in the boot and shoe store of S. Goldbach. He clerked for him six years, until he sold out the store to Calvin W. Prather, when he accepted a position with him in the same capacity, and continued with him for two years.
At the end of that time, in 1879, he formed a partnership with Jacob Loomis and opened up a shoe house in his present stand on Spring street, under the firm name of "Lancaster & Loomis." This firm continued in business until August, 1883, when it dissolved and closed out. In 1884 Mr. Lancaster again opened the boot and shoe business in the same old stand, and has continued there ever since, doing a good business ; by close attention to his business and by honest, fair dealing he has estab- lished a large and profitable trade.
He is one of the promising young business men of his city, and his friends predict for him success as a merchant. Heis the son of John and Sarah (Johnston) Lancaster. His father is a native Virginian and his mother
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is a native of Indiana. They are now liv- ing in Cass county, Mo., where in 1876 they removed from Indiana.
Mr. Lancaster was married to Miss Sarah F. McCulloch, daughter of John McCulloch, a wealthy farmer of Jefferson- ville township, Clark county. They have two children, both boys,-Edwin R. and Ralph J. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge and of the Presbyterian Church, and a worthy member of society. He is honored and respected by all who know him.
ROBERT B. LAUDER was born in Scotland, November 7, 1848, and came to the United States with his parents in 1856 and located in Jefferson county, Ind. He lived there with his parents, attending the common schools of his district until he went to Madison to learn the business of house carpenter and builder. After serv- ing out his time as an apprentice, he con- tinned to work at his trade in Madison un- til 1879, when he removed to Jeffersonville and went to work for the Ohio Falls Car Company, as a journeyman carpenter, in the passenger department, and in 1880 was appointed as foreman of the finishing de- partment. He remained in that position until 1882, when he was appointed foreman of the erecting department and remained in that position until the closing down of the Car Works in 1884. During the sus- pension of work by the Car Company he left Jeffersonville, but in 1886, when the works were again started up, he returned and was appointed foreman of the cabinet and erecting work in the passenger depart- ment until 1887, when he was appointed superintendent of the passenger construc- tion department, which position he now holds.
Mr. Lauder is a member of the order of
the Knights of Pythias. He was married in 1873 to Miss Alice Thompson, of Madi- son, Ind. She died in 1876, leaving two children, a boy and girl, William and Ber- tha, both of whom are still living. In 1882 he married the second time to Miss Luella Johnson, of Jeffersonville, Ind., and by this marriage he had two children, a girl (Luella) and boy, the boy being dead. He is the son of William and Ann (Shankland) Lau- der, both natives of Scotland. They are both still living and are citizens of Jennings county, Ind.
WM. LEE was born on the 23d day of December, 1814, some two weeks before the final struggle for American Indepen- dence, which took place on the 8th day of January, 1815, and which resulted so glor- iously to the American canse, a preliminary engagement took place between the forces in the field, resulting in driving back the enemy.
On this day and about this hour, in a sleepy, old fashioned hamlet, away up in the Old North State, named Concord, the county seat of Cabarrus county, a child was born, who was afterward christened William. His parents, James Lee and Mary (Barringer) Lee, were both natives of the same county and State, and resided in the neighborhood where they were born and raised. His father had been left an orphan during his boyhood, alone with his mother to support, his older brothers and sisters having married and left the parent rooftree. But with a stout heart he met and overcame the difficulties which pre- sented themselves, and supported himself and his mother until she was taken from him and transferred to another and a bette home.
He was the youngest son of his father, James Lee, who had emigrated from Vir-
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ginia before the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, and was a member of the celebrated Virginia Lee family, and was a soldier of the Revolution. He died some time during the nineties.
James Lee, the father of our subject, was born in November, 1787, and came into being the same year that the Convention finished its labors in enacting the present Federal Constitution, under which this Gov- ernment had grown and prospered for one hundred years. Notwithstanding the fact that he only obtained three months' school- ing, he was a well read and a well posted man upon all matters of general or public concern.
In 1808 he was married to Miss Mary Barringer, a daughter of John Barringer, a wealthy old German, of Cabarrus county, N. C. She was born March 23, 1793, and wasraised there in the neighborhood. Some of her family have risen to and occupied high political stations in the country- Daniel Barringer, a cousin, having repre- sented this Government both in Congress and as Minister to the Court of Madrid under Mr. Tyler's administration.
In 1816 his father, James Lee, having heard so much about the Great Northwest and especially the then Territory of Indi- ana as an opening home for young farmers, and, although having become a slave- owner himself to the extent of owning three slaves, a man and a woman and a boy, because he hated the institution and wanted to get away from it, he determined to sell off and remove to Indiana. He soon put this determination into execution, and, in October, 1816, he crossed the Ohio river at the Falls and landed in the settlement on the waters of Blue river, iu the south- ern part of Washington county, about the 20th of October, only a short time before the Territory of Indiana passed into State-
hood and was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State, thus establishing the two remarkable coincidents in his life, that he was born with the Federal Constitution, and came to Indiana and there established his future home at the time of its birth and admittance as a sister State into the Union.
The trip from North Carolina over the Allegheny Mountains was made in packet wagons, and it took about four weeks to make it. William, our subject, was then a baby in arms and has no recollection of the events of that overland journey. His father hired or rented a farm belonging to Marston Green Clark and moved into a log cabin on it. This same Marston Green Clark, who was a relative in some degree of Gen. George Rogers Clark, had been a prominent man among the early settlers of Clark county ; had been a member of the first court organized in that county in 1801 ; had been one of the commissioners appointed to lay off the town of Jeffersonville ; was now a citizen of Washington county, resid- ing about eight miles south of the town of Salem, the county-seat. On this farm his first dim recollections came to him. Here he remembers his baby sister who had come to them since their arrival in Indiana. Changes took place now, sickness and even death came to them, but all seems to pass before him like a panorama; event fol- lowing event in quick succession.
Time passed on, and his early years were passed in familiar acquaintance with the trials, privations and labors of a pio- neer life, and his early education was such as could be had in the log school-houses of that day.
When he had arrived at the age of sixteen, with a pretty good knowledge of arithme- tic and a smattering of English grammar, his father sent him to the county sem- inary at Salem, under the instruction of
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John I. Morrison, at that time and for many years afterward a leading educator of the State. He remained at the Washington county Seminary under his old tutor, Mr. Morrison, for a number of years studying all the scientific branches, the higher branches of mathematics and Latin, only taking a recess of one year when he was eighteen, during which he taught school.
After leaving school he taught two years in Martinsville, Morgan county, Indiana. He was, on his return home, employed as deputy clerk under Maj. Eli W. Malott, who was elected clerk of the Washing- ton Circuit Court in 1838. In this po- sition he continued until 1841, when he was elected the first auditor of Washington county, and served in that capacity until 1845. At the session of 1845-6 of the Leg- islature of the State he was elected warden of the Indiana State Prison at Jefferson- ville, the duties of which he assumed on the 15th day of June, 1846, he having pre- viously removed from Salem to Jefferson- ville. After the expiration of his term of service as warden, in 1850, he was appointed assistant clerk in the United States House of Representatives at Washington, first under Judge James Young, Clerk of the House, and then under Col. John W. Forney, six years in all. During these six years, while mingling with members of Congress, he made the acquaintance of many of the dis- tinguished men of ante-bellum days, both of the House and of the Senate. He came to the conclusion then, and is strongly of the same opinion now, that it is "distance that lends enchantment to the view," and that the so-called great men, when viewed from short range, are but men, and some of them very common at that.
A change of the officers of the House, made in consequence of a change in its po- litical complexion at the opening of the 34th
Congress, in December, 1856, resulted in a new set of subordinates, and, with the others, Mr. Lee was removed. Mr. Guthrie, the then Secretary of the Treasury, gave him a clerk- ship under him in the First Auditor's office, which he filled until he resigned it in 1858 to accept the clerkship to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, under Hon. William H. English, its chairman. It was in this Congress that the great fight for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution took place, and which was finally settled by the English compromise, as it was called, which was really nothing more than giving the people of Kansas a loophole through which to re- ject the Lecompton Constitution by simply voting for or against certain grants of land for certain purposes, and this election should determine the question of the ad- mission or the rejection of the State under the Lecompton Constitution. But it settled the Lecompton Constitutional question for the time being and gave the country a short breathing spell.
In 1861 he was appointed by Governor Chase, Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, a clerk in his office to sign green- backs and demand treasury notes. These notes came from the engraver's in sheets of four in bundles of a thousand sheets, making four thousand notes to the bundle, requiring four thousand signatures each for the register's and treasurer's clerks. Some clerks could sign four thousand notes a day, but three thousand was a big average day's work. He has done some hard work as a clerk in his lifetime, but this work of signing his name continuously upon note after note thousands of times in a day was the hardest work in the clerking line he ever did.
Some thirty clerks were employed on this work but they could not produce the
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greenbacks as fast as the Government needed them, so the signatures were en- graved in the body of the bills and printed with them and the clerks were dispensed with for that service. From the Secretary's office Mr. Lee was transferred to the Second Auditor's office and set to auditing pay- master's accounts, and continued in that business until, in 1863, he was discharged because a Democrat, when he returned home.
In December, 1863, he took service as a clerk in the freight office of the J., M. & I. Railroad. In 1866 he was promoted to the position of cashier, and continued to dis- charge the responsible duties of that posi- tion until 1874, when a change in the sys- tem of accounting was adopted and he took another position, in which he continued until 1878, when he retired from railroad service.
In 1875 he was nominated by the Dem- ocrats as a candidate for Councilman for the First Ward, and was elected by forty majority over a prominent Republican. He served his constituents for two years, and for personal reasons declined to be a candidate for re-election. In the mean- time, in June, 1876, he was elected by the City Council School Trustee, and served the city in that capacity, as President of the School Board, for three years, devoting much time to the improvement of the city schools. At the April election, 1882, he was elected a Justice of the Peace for Jeffersonville township, and was again re- elected in 1886, and now holds that humble but honorable position as a conservator of the peace of luis county.
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