USA > Indiana > Encyclopedia of biography of Indiana > Part 10
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shielded his men from slaughter as the after a heavy fire of the enemy's line and while this ditch was full of rebel soldiers, Captain Lilly limbered two guns of his battery, carried them to a point at the head of the ditch, where the guns conld rake it from end to end, and opened fire with triple charges of grape and canister down that ditch, dealing death and car- nage with every shot. There stands to-day on the battlefield of Chickamauga. on the identical spot occupied by this brave man, two cannons placed in position to com- memorate this act of bravery on that eventful day. During the two and a half years he was in command of the battery he was forty-two times under fire and was twice struck by bullets, but escaped with only slight wounds. During the spring of 1864, while the Army of the Cumberland was preparing for the Atlanta campaign, Captain Lilly came home on a short leave of absence, when Governor Morton, recep- nizing the ability and dash of the young officer, tendered him the position of major of the Ninth Indiana Cavalry. This com- mission was accepted and he resigned his position as captain of the Eighteenth In- diana Battery and was mustered major of ber 24 of the same year he was promoted to be lieutenant colonel. Colonel Lilly left his battery with profound regret, but under the then existing organization of the Indiana batteries no promotion above captain could be made, and he justly do- served a higher command and made the change on that account only. The bat- rain of shot and shell tore up the earth works. Captain Lilly dismounted from his horse and was everywhere through the battery, directing the aim of the men and encouraging them, his presence in- spiring confidence and courage. His bat- tery was actively engaged in the Tulla- loma campaign which followed the battle of Hoover's Gap. At noon of the 21st day of August, 1863. Captain Lilly's cannons opened on the Confederate stronghold of Chattanooga right in the face of the whole of Bragg's army, and to the con- sternation and surprise of that great gen- eral himself, as the hasty removal of the headquarters afterward testified. In the battle of Chickamauga, which began Fri- day, September 18, at Alexander Bridge, Captain Lilly's battery fired the first shot on the advancing army of Bragg, which was really the opening of the memorable battle known in history as Chickamauga. On the Saturday of the great battle Wild- er's brigade and Captain Lilly's battery formed part of the main line of battle on the right of the Fourteenth Corps. At three o'clock in the afternoon of that aw- ful day Captain Lilly did as daring a deed r the Ninth Cavalry April 4, 1864. Decem- as ever took place in the history of the Army of the Cumberland. In front of a part of Wilder's brigade and midway be- tween the lines of the two connecting ar- mies ran a ditch parallel to the line of battle. The rebels would charge our lines, get as far as this ditch, and then drop into it. out of range of our fire. and our men could not dislodge them. Just | tery reluctantly gave him up. His cour-
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age, ability and devotion to his men had so endeared him to their hearts that to this day the love they bore him still lives in their memory too deeply to ever die out. When the war was over, Colonel Lilly, as did many other young officers of enterprise, saw visions of wealth in the cultivation of cotton on plantations which the owners were too poor to cultivate. Prices were high because the supply of that staple had been greatly reduced dur- ing the war. A crop or two brought prices down; the decline brought disaster to many, and among them was Colonel Lilly. He not only lost his accumula- tions, but his wife died during the period and his own health was severely shaken. After it was all over he came back to In- dianapolis. When he arrived there he had scarcely a dollar and was broken in health. For a time he worked for hardly enough to pay his board. After a time he had an offer to go to Paris, Illinois, to become a partner in a drug business, his experience and skill being put against the capital of the other party. The store soon acquired the best business in the town and it became the purpose of the ambitions manager to make it the drug store of the county. It was his dream to make it the center of the drug business of the whole country, but he early found that the location was not favorable to the realization of so ambitious a project. After a time he sold out and returned to Indianapolis, where he formed a partner- ship for a time with Dr. J. F. Johnston. That partnership was dissolved and then
he began in the most modest manner the business which contained the germ from which the immense business of the pres- ent house sprang. He began to manufac- ture out of pure drugs the medicines which were prescribed by physicians. When he had made a stock he went out and sold them to the trade. The high quality of his goods and the skill with which they were put up made them very popular and his trade rapidly increased. After a time he was occupied at the laboratory making goods, while his brother, James E. Lilly, sold them. It soon became an immense business and larger quarters were neces- sary. The outcome is the large labora- tory of the firm-one of the most com- plete medicine houses in the United States, with a reputation which has passed beyond the boundaries of the United States. As soon as Colonel Lilly was fairly on his feet in his business he began to turn his attention to matters of public improvements. He was a man of rare public spirit, his purpose being not to win popularity or to increase his wealth, but to make the community in which he lived prosperous and to put it in the front rank of the marching army of progress. One of the first public enter- prises in which he took a prominent part was the creation of the Consumers' Gas Trust. He made the first subscription and pushed the matter with tireless en- ergy and consummate skill. He was at the head of the committee to which was assigned the task of securing gas terri-
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tory. That the Consumers' Company has so much gas territory at the present time is dne largely to his foresight and exeeu- tive tact. About the date of the introdue- tion of natural gas, foreseeing the growth of Indianapolis, he conceived the idea of improving the streets and creating a scientific system of drainage. He laid the plan before the Board of Trade, of which he was an officer, but that body hesitated to undertake to carry out so extensive a scheme, involving, as it did, at the outset, the adoption of a new charter. Realizing the need of an organization, he led in the founding of the Commercial Club in 1890. Its methods were largely his con- ception and to the perfection of its or- ganization he devoted his energies. It was his forethought which saw in the con- struction of the Commercial Club build- ing the means of giving a permanent character to the organization. Colonel Lilly was a liberal contributor to every charitable enterprise after he became a man of means. His idea of wealth was to make it useful to the many. Several years ago Colonel Lilly and his wife es- tablished the Eleanor Hospital in remem- brance of their only daughter, who died in childhood. One of the most notable achievements in the line of charity was that of caring for the destitute during the winter of 1893-4. The planning and direc- tion of the work was delegated to Colonel Lilly, H. H. Hanna and John H. Holliday. For a comparatively small amount of money the needy of Indianapolis were car- ried through the winter in comparative
comfort withont materially increasing the number of permanent and profession- al dependents. The scheme was com- mended as the best that was tried in any city during that period. The private char- ities of Colonel Lilly were large and he did not let his left hand know what his right hand did. A member of the Thomas G. A. R. post, in making a general return of its relief work, said that there was al- ways one member who never failed to contribute liberally to aid needy soldiers and their families, and who always said, "Come again when you need money for such cases." After the war, on all nation- al issnes Colonel Lilly was a Republican, but when it came to local affairs he was something of an independent. He never took an active part in party management and repeatedly declined political honors. Colonel Lilly, while of a deeply religious order, was not identified with any church. Personally, he could be counted on al- ways to sustain publie morals. Colonel Lilly died at his home in Indianapolis, June 6, 1898. Among the many glowing tributes to his memory, we quote the following editorial which appeared in the Indianapolis Journal:
"By the death of Col. Eli Lilly, Indian- apolis loses one of its most progressive and useful citizens. During more than a dozen years he has been a leader in the movements which have made Indian- apolis one of the most beautiful cities in the country. Through the organization of the Commercial Club he became the leader of the movement which resulted in the street improvements and the drainage system. During recent years his capacity and public spirit were fully recognized
Ino. w. Kern
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BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
and he was frequently called to take a leading part in movements designed to advance the interests of the city and State. He was one of those broad-minded and humane citizens who devised the sys- tem for the relief of the needy during the winter of 1893-4-the wisest scheme that has ever been devised for such a purpose. There are men who can devise plans which they cannot execute. Colonel Lilly had the rare faculty to devise plans and to execute them. To that capacity his wonderful success in business was due. In his untiring efforts to build up the city Colonel Lilly never songht his own aggrandizement. There was no selfish motive behind his promotion of public in- terests. He sought no advantage that every citizen could not share. Few men have lived in Indianapolis who will be more missed and when a list of those who have been most useful to the city is made, the name of Eli Lilly will be among the first written."
JOHN W. KERN.
Nature, in her kindness to John Worth Kern, has been kind, also, to his biographer; for in endowing the one with all true and gracions qualities and the ca- pacity for large achievement, she has fur- nished to the pen of the other a wealth of attractive material. So distinctly, it would seem, did the great Mother whis- per to this favorite child the direction in which she intended his life work to lie, that he was constrained to resist even the importunities of mortal parentage to follow her leading. Born in Indiana-at the village of Alto, Howard county, De- cember 20, 1849-his fifty years of life have been passed in that State, which would fain cherish him among its honored
living. if so it might be, for another half century. His father. Dr. Jacob H. Kern, was intimately associated with the affairs of Howard county during its early his- tory, where he attained to a distinction of many years' growth in the medical pro- fession. He is still living, having sought as the home of his retirement from active life a picturesque nook in the mountains of Virginia, near the city of Roanoke. The mother of John Worth, Nancy (Lig- gett) Kern, died when he was a child, but he was reared in the old farm homestead, where the father desired that his son should remain with him, accepting as his career, also, the study and practice of medicine. The boy, however, felt an in- satiable thirst for knowledge and a wide scope for its application and when the common schools of his neighborhood had reached the limit of their message to him, he left home and entered upon a colleg- iate course in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, passing, upon the comple- tion of his classical education, into the Law Department of the same institution, where he graduated while still under the age of twenty years. In May, 1869, he was admitted to the bar of Kokomo, In- diana, of which he is still a member. His early practice lay largely in the criminal courts, where he was identified with many celebrated cases. His last work as prosecuting attorney was in the trial of the alleged wreckers of the Indianapolis National Bank, in which he represented the Government most ably, distinguishing himself for his masterly exposition of the
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intricacies involved in the case, and his dexterity in coping with the expert coun- sel employed by the defense. The constant quantity of iniquity in this type of cause, however, was offensive to his professional taste, and, after a term of years, he aban- doned criminal for civil processes, which latter he has found at once more agree- able and more Incrative. Mr. Kern is not only a born student, but possesses the analytical power of mind to no small de- gree. An acute yet sympathetic observer of human nature, he has acquired and pre- served an exquisite balance of justice and the mercy that tempers justice, while an eloquence which is the offspring of these wedded senses has long since crowned him among the royalty of the legal realm. Mr. Kern's political convictions are strongly Democratic, and he has for many years been a zealous exponent of the prin- ciples of his party in Indiana. Avoiding all affiliations calculated to bias the free and intelligent exercise of his political faculty, he has studied the situation with enthusiastic interest, and as a legislator has rendered most valuable service to his constituents. He has been active in every general campaign since 1872, and there are few, if any, counties in the State where the effectiveness of his speeches is not a familiar memory. Although so ar- dent in the support of his party, however, he has always commanded the esteem and confidence of his po- litical opponents, sentiments inspired by him to no less degree in legal contests. In Kokomo he held the
office of city attorney for seven years, al- though during that time the appointing power was in Republican hands. In 1884, he was nominated by the Democrats for reporter of the Supreme Court of Indiana, his election being secured, after a lively campaign, by a generous majority; and the proficiency with which he discharged the duties of his office is abundantly attested in the seventeen volumes of de- visions of the Supreme Court, which bear his name, and which were edited and is- sued under his direction. On the comple- tion of his incumbency as reporter, he be- came a partner in the firm of Kern and Bailey, which took its place among the leading law concerns of the city of In- dianapolis. Mr. Kern served as State Senator from Marion county during the two sessions included between 1892 and 1896, and in October, 1897, he was ap- pointed city attorney for Indianapolis, in which capacity he still serves. In con- nection with his municipal duties, he pur- snes an individual practice, having two years ago dissolved his partnership with Mr. Bailey. Mr. Kern was married, in 1870, to Miss Julia Anna Hazzard. Of this marriage, which was throughout a rarely felicitous one, were born a son, Fred, and a daughter, Julia, now aged re- spectively twenty-six and fifteen years. Fred Kern did service with the army of General Shafter before Santiago, being a private in Company C, First D. C. Vol- unteers. Mr. Kern's first wife died in August, 1884, and in December of the fol- lowing year he was united to Miss Ara-
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minta A. Cooper, of Kokomo. Although a man of broad interests and achieve- ments, Mr. Kern has not been neglectful of the social side of life. On the contrary, the many social virtues and graces which make him a general favorite form an ele- ment which must not be left out of the account in summing up the secret of his involvement in the weighty affairs of the community. Of a fertile fancy and ready wit, he has at his command a vol- uminous stock of anecdotes, from which he draws to suit the occasion, whether to give pith to an argument in the court room or for the entertainment of a circle of friends. In closing, this memoir can but speculate upon its sequel, which, written or unwritten, will one day exist in potentiality, for Mr. Kern still stands in the full brilliance of life's noontide, draw- ing from the past a wealth of experience and inspiration for use in a future even more rich in promise.
WILLIAM A. KETCHAM.
The Ketchams, originally from Eng- land, settled on Long Island in the sev- enteenth century. One branch of the fam- ily removed first to Maryland and thence to Virginia, where the great-grandfather of our subject was born and whence he removed to Kentucky before the close of the eighteenth century. The grandfather of William A. was born and reared in Kentucky and moved thence to the Ter- ritory of Indiana; was a member of the
first State Legislature under the Consti- tution of 1816; laid out Brownstown, the county seat of Jackson county, conveying the land for that purpose from his own estate. It is rather a curious fact worthy of record in this connection that the ques- tion of reversion of the title to this site was raised in 1895, when a bill was pend- ing in the Legislature for the removal of the county seat to Seymour, and was re- ferred to the Attorney General of the State, who happened to be the grandson of the original proprietor. John L. Ketcham, for many years a well-known Indianapolis lawyer, was a native of Ken- tucky, brought to Indiana Territory by his parents as a child one year old and settled in Indianapolis in 1834. He mar- ried the daughter of Samuel Merrill, an old and prominent citizen of the Terri- tory and State of Indiana, the first treas- urer of the State and the first president of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad .. William A. Ketcham, born in Indian- apolis in 1846, is the son of John L. Ketch- am and Jane Merrill, whose mother was the daughter of Robert Anderson. He at- tended the public schools of Indianapolis until he was thirteen years of age and then spent two years in the schools of Germany, from 1859 to 1861. On return- ing home he entered Wabash College at Crawfordsville and pursued its course of study for two years. While a junior, in February, 1864, he enlisted as a private in Company A, Thirteenth Regiment, In- diana Volunteers. After nine months' service as an enlisted man he was com-
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missioned second lieutenant of Company E and subsequently placed in command of Company C with the same rank. In May, 1865, he was appointed and commis- sioned captain of Company I of the same regiment at the age of nineteen. His sery- ice was in the Tenth Corps and with the Army of the James until that corps joined the Army of the Potomac in the battle of Cold Harbor; was in the fight at Bermuda Hundred and all the engage- ments around Petersburg; was sent to North Carolina to assist in the reduction of Fort Fisher, remained in that State till the close of the war and was mustered out September, 1865. The exodus of patriotic students to the war depopulated Wabash College, class associations were
broken up and classmen scattered. On returning home therefore Captain Ketch- am decided to complete his college course in the East and immediately entered Dartmouth, where he remained until he finished the course and was graduated in 1867. Without delay he entered upon the study of law under the instruction of Judge David McDonald and in the office of his father; was admitted to the bar in 1869 and began practice in partnership with his father and the late Major Mitchell. In a short time his father died and was succeeded in the firm by Judge Newcomb, who remained in the partner- ship two years, until his appointment to the bench, and again became a member of the firm in 1876, remaining four years. Upon the election of Major Mitchell to the office of mayor in 1873, Captain Ketcham
became associated with the late Judge Solomon Claypool, in a partnership which continued nntil 1890, and which consti- tuted one of the strongest law firms in Indianapolis. Since 1890 he has practised alone. In the Republican Convention of 1894 he was nominated, after a spirited contest with several candidates, as a can- didate for Attorney General, and was elected in November. In the convention of 1896 he was renominated by acclama- tion and re-elected. In the office of At- torney General he has been called upon to conduct, on behalf of the State, an un- precedented amount of litigation in the highest courts. Among the very import- ant cases may be mentioned those involv- ing the constitutionality of the statutes taxing telegraph and express companies, which were attacked with great skill and vehemence by the very able lawyers em- ployed by those companies. Their consti- tutionality was sustained finally by the Supreme Court of the United States, be- fore which the questions were ably ar- gued by General Ketcham and others. The law governing the management of the Prison Board and the one providing for intermediate sentences of convicts were also attacked and successfully defended by General Ketcham. He was instrumen- tal in breaking up the gang of gamblers that inaugurated winter racing, prize fighting and other vicious or swindling entertainments at Roby. Perhaps his crowning achievement was the fight he made upon two apportionment laws of the State, enacted respectively in 1893 and
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1895, alleging that they were unfair and unconstitutional. He succeeded in the Su- preme Court in having both of them set aside after argument establishing their repugnance to the spirit of the Constitu- tion. These decisions stand as a menace to any political party in the State that may seek hereafter to make one man more powerful than another, because of his politics, in fixing the basis of representa- tion. Absolute fairness and equality are now required. General Ketcham was married in June, 1873, to the daughter of his old preceptor, Judge McDonald. Six daughters and one sou are the fruit of this union. Two of the daughters are stu- dents at Wellesley. William A. Ketcham is an excellent lawyer. Favored by nature with what may be termed the law- yerly instinct, he enjoys the advantages of broad scholarship and thorough pro- fessional training. As counsel and trial lawyer, he has been connected with cases of transcendent importance, as well as the infinite variety of small cases which come to the average lawyer in general practice. He has good control of his faculties and possesses in a high degree the power of concentration. He is vigor- ous in statement and strong in argument, reasoning with great force. His manner is aggressive. He contends pertinacious- ly for every essential point and does not exhaust himself on the trivial or irrele- vant. He is very familiar with a vocabu- lary which contains some explosives, and adjectives that are almost picturesque in their descriptiveness. Hence be is not
unfamiliar with the uses of irony, in- vective, ridicule and sarcasm. He is a forceful, ready speaker, whether in the argument of a legal proposition, an ad- dress to the jury or a popular oration. He believes in the strict, impartial and vig- orous enforcement of the law. He is so constituted as to question the good citi- zenship of any man who either joins a mob to usurp the functions of the courts or seeks to shield others guilty of such an offense. Above all, he would condemn the lax administration of justice by the courts and others charged with the execu- tion of the laws, and the disposition sometimes observed in such officials to excuse or palliate gross and willful viola- tions of the law. He is stern, inflexible, and persistent in the execution of an offi- cial trust. Socially, his attainments are strong, but they are not hastily formed. A stranger would define his manner as civil rather than genial; but his rugged honesty impresses one favorably on closer acquaintance. Among intimates he is a good conversationalist and tells a story well. His favorite literature is fiction, his favorite author, Thackeray, and his fav- orite book, "Henry Esmond." His tastes and habits are essentially domestic. His whole life has been spent in the city of Indianapolis where he remembers to have lived in but three houses, and occupied one law office about thirty years, until the destruction of an adjoining building by fire rendered its walls unsafe and oc- casioned its condemnation by the proper authorities. He finds congenial society at
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home with an intelligent wife and the bright, happy and studious children.
WILLIAM L. CARNAHAN.
The advent of the Carnahan family in this country antedates the Revolution, William Carnahan, who participated in that war and who was the great-grand- father of William Lane Carnahan, hav- ing crossed to America in 1765 and lo- cated in the county of Lancaster, Penn- sylvania. He was of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion, born in Ireland and reared a Protes- tant. While doing service as a Revolu- tionary soldier he became the father, on June 7, 1777, of a son, who was chris- tened Robert. At the age of eighteen years Robert Carnahan left home, and, journeying westward, settled upon a farm in Hamilton county, Ohio, but a few miles distant from the site of the present populous Cincinnati. Here he dwelt and tilled his land during the re- maining fifty years of his life, and here was born, on December 31, 1807, his son, James G. Carnahan, father of this me- moir's subject. The old estate has al- ways remained in the possession of the family; James Carnahan, however, at twenty years of age abandoned the farm life for commercial occupation in the neighboring village of Venice, and short- ly afterward, in 1828, he was married to Miss Margaret Brown, daughter of Rob- ert and Rachael (Bailey) Brown, of Ham- ilton county. In 1831 this youthful
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