USA > Indiana > Wells County > Biographical memoirs of Wells County, Indiana : embracing a comprehensive compendium of local biography, memoirs of representative men and women of the county whose works of merit have made their names imperishable, and special articles by Hugh Dougherty [et al.] > Part 9
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attorney. Thomas L. Wisner became clerk in November, 1859.
At the February term, 1860, John Cole- rick, a man of magnetic and persuasive elo- quence, succeeded to the office of prosecu- tor, and in February, 1861, was in turn succeeded by Augustus A. Chapin, recent judge of the Allen superior court.
On August 23, 1861, Thomas W. Wilson became a member of this bar, and Nathaniel DeHaven became sheriff. In November, 1864, James H. Schell became prosecutor and in the following February Robert Low- ry, a member of the forty-eighth and forty- ninth congresses from the Fort Wayne dis- trict, took his seat upon the bench. The chief business transacted in the courts of this county from the years 1861 to 1867 inclusive was by some general divorce agents residing at Fort Wayne, who oper- ated for the middle, eastern and New Eng- land states and Canada. Divorces under the lax laws then existing were ground out by the half-bushel.
During the subsequent years of our juris- prudence the circuit court has been pro- vided with officers as follows: Judges- Robert Lowry, until April, 1873, when he was succeeded by Jacob M. Haynes, who continued until November, 1878, when his successor, James R. Bobo, qualified and con- tinued until April, 1885, at which time he was succeeded by Henry B. Sayler, who re- tired from the bench November 19, 1888, and was in turn succeeded by Joseph S. Dailey. The latter was promoted to the supreme bench of Indiana, on July 25, 1893, to fill the unexpired term of Judge Olds, and remained thereon until January 8, 1895. Edwin C. Vaughn, present incumbent, was appointed his successor as judge of the
Wells county circuit court. James R. Mc- Cleery succeeded Wisner as clerk in Novem- ber, 1867, and continued as such until his death in April, 1874. Thomas L. Wisner was commissioned as his successor and held until November, 1874. William J. Craig was clerk from November, 1874, to November, 1882. His successor, John H. Ormsby, held this office from November, 1882, to November, 1890; Albert Oppenheim, from November, 1890, to November, 1894; Rob- ert F. Cummins, from November, 1894, to November, 1898, and was succeeded by the present incumbent, James C. Hatfield, at said time.
Manual Chalfant was sheriff from 1865 to 1867 and from 1869 to 1871; Isaiah J. Covault, from 1867 to 1869 and from 1871 to 1873; William W. Weisell, from 1873 to 1877; James B. Plessinger, from 1877 to 1881; Marcellus M. Justus, from 1881 to 1885; Henry Kirkwood, from 1885 to 1889: James T. Dailey, from 1889 to 1893; George W. Huffman, from 1893 to 1897: William Higgins, from 1897 to January I, 1902, and since then James R. Johnston has been sheriff. This court has been supplied with the following prosecutors during the interim named: Thomas W. Wilson, from November, 1866, to November, 1868; Jos- eph S. Dailey, from November, 1868, to November, 1876; Joshua Bishop, from November, 1876, to November, 1877; Luther I. Baker, from November, 1877, to November, 1880; John T. France, from November, 1880, to November, 1884; Ed- win C. Vaughn, from November, 1884, to November, 1888; William A. Branyan, from November, 1888, to November, 1892; Samuel E. Cook, from November, 1892, to July, 1893; Jay A. Hindman, from 1893 to
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1896; Aaron M. Waltz, from November, 1896, to November, 1900, since which time John Burns has ocuupied this position.
At the November term, 1870, James Gil- len was tried for the murder of William J. McCleery, but was convicted of manslaugh- ter and sentenced to the penitentiary for twelve years. It was a case that created great excitement and much interest, and was ably conducted on both sides, by coun- sel many of whom were eminent in the law.
The usually quiet and law-abiding county of Wells has been at times under great com- motion by reason of homicides in her midst. In her history 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 killing Needham Mc- Bride; George W. King, for killing Martin Thayer; William Walker, for slaying George Shaw, and John Siberry, for the killing of his wife. Some of these cases were of great moral turpitude, and are a blotch upon the otherwise fair escutcheon of the county ; but a portion of the cases had many extenuating circumstances, and in the case of Hoopengarner the jury wisely found it to be one of justifiable homicide.
We had the anomaly from 1853 to 1873 of a court of common pleas, erected and or- ganized with almost concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit court, and during its exist- ence it contained the following officers : Wilson B. Loughridge was judge from its organization to January, 1861, when he was succeeded by Joseph Brackenridge, who held until January, 1865; James W. Bor- den, from January, 1865, until January, 1868, when Robert S. Taylor, one of the most learned and best equipped attorneys
of this state, was commissioned his succes- sor. David Studabaker, of Decatur, an able lawyer, succeeded him in January, 1869, but resigned in September, 1869, when Robert S. Taylor became his succes- sor. In January, 1871, William W. Carson succeeded Judge Taylor, who in turn was succeeded by Samuel E. Sinclair, in Janu- ary, 1873, the latter holding this position until it was abolished as a needless expense about three months thereafter. The prose- cutors of this court were Benedict 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 coun- ty's history the business transactions were limited, and one order book of this court embraces all the civil and criminal causes there tried from its organization up to and including the January term, 1859. During the subsequent period of our jurisprudence several parties were admitted to the local bar and for a time were engaged as coun- sel who no longer respond to the roll call. Among these was Thomas A. R. Eaton, now deceased: 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," came and practiced here, but soon returned to his native state, Ohio, which he for a time served with dis- tinction in her legislative council. £ Mr. Callen has been in his grave for the last decade. Benjamin G. Shinn, now a prom- inent lawyer of Hartford City, was admit- ted to practice here on September 19, 1865. Hon. Daniel Waugh, former judge of the Tipton and Howard circuit, and more re-
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cently a member of congress, was admitted May 22, 1866, with the lamented Jacob J. Todd and James A. Cotton, now of New Castle, Indiana, May 20, 1867. William J. Davis, a graduate of Washington College, Pennsylvania, located here and was admitted to the bar in 1871 ; later he removed to Go- shen. He is now a prominent attorney of that city and served his county with dis- tinction in the state senate. Capt. William J. Hilligass, who recently died at Muncie, was admitted in the succeeding year. Jos- eph W. Ady, who afterwards enjoyed a state-wide reputation in Kansas, and was Harrison's United States attorney for that state, was reared in Wells county, and ad- mitted to this bar, but shortly thereafter obeyed the injunction of the "white-hatted philosopher" who said, "Young man, go west."
About the year 1870 Augustus N. Mar- tin, a young man from Butler county, Penn- sylvania, made his advent into this com- munity, began the study of law with Jacob J. Todd, and shortly thereafter became his partner in business. He served his adopted county in the house of representatives of this state from January, 1875. to January, 1877, was for four years thereafter reporter of the supreme court of Indiana, and from 1889 to 1895 was a member of the national congress, making for himself an excellent record therein. He died in 1901.
Our present bar comprises a large per cent. of all the members who ever engaged as resident attorneys at this place, and em- braces the names of Joseph S. Dailey, Levi
Mock, John K. Rinehart, James P. Hale, A. L. Sharpe, J. H. C. Smith, George W. Kimball, Abram Simmons, F. M. McFad- den, Charles E. Sturgis, Martin W. Wal- bert, George Mock, John Mock, William H. Eichhorn, Frank C. Dailey, George A. Matlack, Nelson K. Todd, Augustus W. Hamilton, L. F. Sprague and J. W. Lam- bright, and without particularizing or mak- ing any invidious distinctions, the writer with confidence states, that this list com- prises in its numbers a galaxy of attorneys as well qualified for the great work of the profession as can be found in any county in Indiana.
Since the influx of railroads into the county, beginning in the autumn of 1869, it has nearly tripled in population and ma- terial wealth; two thousand miles of open ditches have been constructed and three hundred miles of free gravel roads.
Many large manufacturing industries have been established in Bluffton, and all kinds of commercial pursuits are being con- ducted and the county is rapidly gaining a front rank as an educated, enterprising and public-spirited locality ; as a result of the growth and development of her material in- terests, much litigation has necessarily fol- lowed in the last twenty years. But the Wells county bar have been equal to the emergency, fully equipped for the great work they have been called upon to per- form, and in their efforts to enforce rights and redress wrongs, they have been aided at all times by an intelligent and incorruptible judiciary.
MEDICAL HISTORY OF WELLS COUNTY.
BY GEORGE E. FULTON, M. D., Ex-Member Indiana State Legislature; Ex-Health Officer to Wells County.
The medical history of Wells county has to do not only with the physicians who from the earliest pioneer days applied the healing art as best they could under the adverse circumstances of that early epoch, but deals with the people, the climate and the geo- graphical aspect of the territory out of which the county was carved by chain and com- pass. With a state and county map lying before me and with a fair practical knowl- edge of the surroundings from traveling at various times over the entire county, I would say that, approximately estimated, Wells county is fourteen miles from east to west and twenty-four miles from north to south, with the addition thereto of Jackson township on the extreme southwest with an area of six miles square, the said township being the equal in all respects to the rest of the county. The area embraced within the rugged outlines given is largely a level tract, covered originally with dense forest and in the low marshy lands with an exuberant growth of vegetation. The Wabash river, the main source of water supply, courses di- agonally across the county from the south-
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east to the northwest; the second largest stream, the Salamonie river, crosses the southwestern portion of the county; both of these streams are splendid water-ways, the bed of each stream is underlaid with a fine quality of lime-stone rock, sand and gravel, insuring abundance of building material for domestic and public purposes, while the water of said streams is pure and whole- some for man and beast. Other and smaller streams are frequent in the northern and south-central portions of the county. In the former, Eight-mile river, or creek, might be mentioned (now transformed into a large public ditch and the waste lands re- claimed to agricultural purposes). This stream had scarcely any channel or outlet and comprised originally a low marshy tract of land that lay for a long period of time practically useless, except as a rendez- vous in the heated season for frogs, mosqui- toes, stray cattle and wild hogs, and last, but not least, as a stronghold for the origin and spread of malarial germs, resulting in fever and ague. This area, like many others where the lowlands existed and the water
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was more or less stagnant during the heated and ensuing autumnal season of the year, became the battleground of the "pioneer doctor." His services, with a liberal sup- ply of quinine, were in constant demand in every cabin, as malaria, resulting in chills and fever, afflicted almost every person, al- though not so virulent and destructive to life as many of the diseases that now visit the older and more densely populated com- munities, such as diphtheria, small-pox, scarlet fever, cerebro-spinal meningitis and typhoid fever. Malaria was not so destruct- ive to life and devastating to the community as these, yet it was a great source of suffer- ing and its miasm caused many deaths and was a barrier in the way of the health and progress of the unacclimated pioneer inhabi- tants of the new country which was just emerging from the wilderness of chaos.
All honor to the early practitioner of medicine who braved the storms and plung- ed into the dense forests with horse and spur and pillbags, winding his way by bridle path and blazed trees, and at times plung- ing his horse into swollen streams or cross- ing dangerous bridges, before arriving on his mission of healing at the little cabin in the "open" or "clearing." These were the days of marked hospitality and nothing was too good for the doctor or preacher, possibly the only visitors to enter the house for months at a time, to cheer and comfort the hearts of the settlers.
The twin professions, medicine and theology, have ever gone hand in hand and have served well their day and generation, from the earliest dawn to the present day, and their responsibility and prominent parts enacted in the drama of life are ever widen- ing, ever increasing and must continue to do
so while the world and the race lasts. With the foregoing as a ground work for the scenes and incidents that were to play a prominent part in the moral and physical development and life of the county, the tide of emigration began to flow steadily in and soon in many places the dense forest was felled by the woodman's ax and by and by in place thereof appeared fields of waving grain and pasture lands, dotted here and there with bleating sheep and lowing cattle, while orchard and vineyard were wont to fling out their blossoms and sweet perfume to laden the invigorating air. The best of all and crowning hope of the land, the school house and academy, appeared, gar- landed round about as with a girdle by the new generation of boys and girls, whose merry laughter, ringing voices, romp and frolic would seem to drive care and trouble forever to the remotest caverns of the earth. In these primitive institutions of learning the youthful brain was tutored with useful knowledge and the character was formu- lated and stocked with the underlying prin- ciples essential to good government, viz : industry, truth and sobriety.
A good start is nine-tenths already won in life's battle. Surely the ultimate growth and achievement all along the line in the multitude of affairs in the county indicate that the first settlers were of the right kind of stock and gave to us the right kind of a start, and so it then devolved upon us to carry out and fulfill, building upon the bed- rock foundation already laid for us.
EARLY MEDICAL STATISTICS.
From a personal interview with some of the pioneer citizens yet living, and others who have passed away, the writer has
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gleaned the following facts: Jacob R. Har- vey, who is yet living on his farm near Murray, informed us that he emigrated with his parents and settled near Murray in 1832; he also stated that Allen and William Nor- cross settled here in 1830. Dr. John I. Metts, of Ossian, in an interview I held with him, stated that he settled in Wells county in 1836. These citizens reported to me that remnants of the Miami tribe of Indians were still here, but friendly in disposition. To my inquiry as to whether the Indians were sub- ject to chills and fever, they answered that they were.
The first physician to settle in Wells county was Dr. John Knox, settling here in 1829 on the farm subsequently owned by Henry Miller, near Murray. The second physician was Dr. Williams, who located in Murray in 1838. The third physician in the county was Dr. William Fellows, a regular practitioner who settled some two miles south of Bluffton, on the David Studa- baker farm, in 1838.
The birth of the only colored child born in the county occurred in Bluffton, on July 20, 1880.
EARLY EPIDEMICS.
An epidemic of typhoid fever occurred in 1845; an epidemic of scarlet fever in 1849; a case of cholera (Asiatic) in 1849; an epidemic of measles in 1849; a case of small pox occurred in Bluffton in 1854; an epidemic of diphtheria in 1855.
THE WELLS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
This society was organized April 9, 1878, with the following physicians as its officers : President, C. T. Melsheimer ; sec- retary, T. H. Crosbie ; treasurer, T. Horton ;
censors, B. F. Cummins, W. R. S. Clark and L. A. Spaulding.
A constitution and by-laws were framed and adopted and articles of incorporation were filed and recorded within the records of Wells county. The organization adopted the code of ethics of the American Medical Association and is auxiliary to the Indiana State Medical Society, to which it sends at each annual meeting delegates to represent the county society, the said delegates having 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 expressions to their views and the objects of the medical profession ; to develop more efficient means than we have had hitherto for cultivating and raising to a higher plain the standard of medical knowledge; for exciting and en- couraging 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 membership, there being an average of from fifteen to twenty members, owing to death, removals, etc. Being com- posed of the leading physicians of the county it is as live and active, according to its mem- bers, as any like organization in the state. The meetings of the society are held the sec- ond Tuesday of each month in Bluffton, with the exception of one meeting each year in the month of June, which is held in Ossian, the second city in size in the county.
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A standing invitation to attend each meet- ing is always gratuitously published by the press of Bluffton to all who may desire an examination and the advice of the members free, in response to which numerous per- sons from all parts of the county attend the meetings and embrace the opportunity of benefits tendered. A' prominent feature of the society is the preparation and reading of original papers or essays on subjects per- taining to the science of medicine and sur- gery by the members in turn as their names occur on the roll in alphabetical order. Fol- lowing the delivery of such papers there is a rigid discussion, approving or disapprov- ing in a friendly and ethical way the re- spective merits of each.
It is hoped that in the future of this so- ciety, as in the past, persons having unusu- ally rare cases or ailments will seek the gra- tuitous advice and counsel of the society, as in the "multitude of counsel there is wis- dom." Ordinarily a layman has but little interest, aside from curiosity, in attending the meeting's of physicians and surgeons ; as the friendly combats of the intellect are of intense interest to the doctors, they offer about as much interest to the general pub- lic as would a theological debate conducted in Sanscrit, or the tedious discussion of a problem in abstract mathematics. In a meeting of this kind there is innumerable reference to such unheard-of things as "lesions," internal extravasations," "me- dullas," "cystitis," "femurs," "aneurisms," and "articulations," to say nothing about "metabolic" and "pre-systolic."
Every organization, like every house- hold, has its visitations of gloom; her'e we pause and drop the sympathetic tear in memory of those who on earth have applied
their last healing unction. Five of the char- ter members have passed away by death; they are Drs. C. T. Melsheimer, T. H. Cros- bie, W. R. S. Clark, Theodore Horton and B. F. Cummins. The places in the ranks thus sadly made vacant were rapidly re- filled, so far as members are concerned, but to say excelled or outclassed so far as merit is taken as the unit of standard is a question the answer to which I will leave to the in- telligent scrutiny of a just public. Under the limited advantages of the early period in the development and progress of the science, they who preceded us wrought well and faithfully. It therefore remains to be seen whether, with the advanced position we now occupy, if the search-light of mod- ern investigation and research were turned on, it would disclose the fact that we occupy, relatively speaking, a higher altitude in the scale of attainments or not.
The physicians of the pioneer days wrought according to the light and sur- roundings of the period in which they lived and we of these latter days have only done as much, while those who are to succeed us will perform well their part and doubtless pierce the hidden and mysterious forces yet latent so far as the intellect of man is con- cerned, but pregnant with untold wonders in the universe about us.
This is said to be the "sanitary era," and it is certain that no period of time prior to the present has witnessed the activity dis- played along this line of prophylaxis. Leg- islation, both state and national, has been enacted and its beneficent results have de- scended even down to Wells county among the others. These laws have been carried out and enforced with a fair degree of suc- cess, reaching from the great and populous
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municipalities down to the village and rural districts. As a result of the foregoing, con- tagious diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, small pox, and in some places tuberculosis and possible others, have been quarantined, thus saving countless numbers from exposure to disease and pos- sible death and thousands upon thousands of dollars to the commercial world. Wells county also shares in the benefits derived to her unfortunate subjects, in the establish- ing of state and county institutions which are maintained at great public expense for the comfort and relief of the insane, the inebriates, the epileptics and other unfor- tunates who come under the special care and protection of the benevolent institutions of our state.
As to the prevention of contagious dis- eases, none is freighted with more import- ance to the human family than tuberculosis and its arrest and cure, if such a thing were possible. A number of eminent specialists have quite recently given valuable statistics relative to this disease, and have shown that more people die from this dread disease in every country on the face of the globe than from any other disease; sixteen people die from it to each one from typhoid-fever; eight to one of diphtheria. In Germany more die from consumption in four months than from yellow fever in thirty years. In the past year (1901) 18,763 people died of this disease alone in the ten principal cities of the United States. There is one hopeful aspect among the direful reports about this dis- ease and that is, that the universal agitation of the subject will result in greater informa- tion regarding the disease and its care and treatment, and thus the outlook is some- what better from this standpoint. Hospitals
and sanitariums for tuberculosis patients should be established, and I think will be in the future, and maintained by county and state for the detention and cure of this class Of cases. Great improvement has been made in the treatment and management of many diseases and in surgical operations and pro- cedure. For example the introduction of anti-toxine serum for the prevention and cure of diphtheria has actually lessened the mortality from that dread disease fifty per cent. Prof. Pasteur's discovery and method of innoculation for the prevention and cure of rabies (hydrophobia) has proven what is claimed for it.
The wonderful achievement in the surgi- cal field is surprising and many and danger- ous operations only occasionally performed by the rarest experts in the large cities and hospitals are now successfully performed by the rural surgeons in every part of the land.
Within the last few years the discovery has been made that malaria is a blood dis- ease due to a parasite, which gains entrance into the system through the bite of the "pesky little mosquito" and that it is not the result of a mysterious miasm, which was long thought to be the cause. Thanks to the scientific investigations of two English physicians, Drs. Manson and Ross, it has been clearly shown that malaria is contract- ed through the bite of the mosquito; when a person is thus bitten, certain minute needle-like spores pass into the poison sack, to be injected into the unfortunate person ; these spores then develop in the blood to full-fledged plasmodia and the malaria is thus communicated. This has later been verified by the medical records and reports of the Cuban war.
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