USA > Indiana > Encyclopedia of biography of Indiana > Part 18
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General Stone to present his plans to Governor Morton, and told him that the medical department was amply able to take charge of their sick and wounded and had ample facilities to transfer them north when thought best. General Stone applied to Dr. Wishard, who privately went to each of the hospitals and pro- cured a list of the sick and wounded in each hospital, and the capacity of the hospitals. Dr. Wishard also secured a list of the boats capable of transferring troops and their capacity. General Stone brought this list to Indianapolis immedi- ately and presented it to Governor Mor- ton, who took the train the same night to Washington City. Governor Morton ap- plied to Secretary Stanton for an order allowing him to move sick and wounded Indiana soldiers home. Secretary Stan- ton declined to grant the request and Governor Morton called upon President Lincoln, who immediately called a cabi- net meeting, at which Governor Morton was present, and presented the matter in a forcible speech. Secretary Stanton in- sisted that it could not be done, as other States would complain if favoritism was shown Indiana, and he also denied the accuracy of the statistics Governor Mor- ton presented. Mr. Lincoln sent for Sur- geon-General Barnes, and it was found by comparison that the report made by Dr. Wishard, through General Stone to Governor Morton, did not vary three per cent from the reports made to the sur- geon-general through customary chan- nels. Mr. Lincoln answered Secretary
Stanton's objection by directing him to issue a general order sending all sick and wounded soldiers home, and calling upon the Governors of the different States to co-operate. This general order created consternation and surprise among some of the higher medical officers of the army, who thought their authority was being interfered with. Nevertheless Mr. Lin- coln said it was an act of humanity and must be done, and it undoubtedly saved the lives of many soldiers. The sick and wounded troops now took precedence; hospital boats were equipped and the movement North at once began. Dr. Wishard made the first trip himself with the steamer "Sunnyside" from Vicksburg and Natchez to Cairo, and thence to the hospital and Soldiers' Home in Indianapo- lis. His intense and unselfish loyalty is manifested by the fact that he never ac- cepted any remuneration whatever, ex- cept his personal expenses, while in the service of the Government. In March, 1864, Dr. Wishard removed, with his fam- ily, to Southport, seven miles south of Indianapolis, where he resided and con- tinned to practice medicine until Octo- ber, 1876. In October, 1876, Dr. Wishard was elected coroner of Marion county and removed from Southport to Indianapolis, where he has remained ever since. After serving four years as coroner, he contin- ued the practice of medicine, which he had not entirely given up. The space of this biography does not permit any retro- spect of the immense progress in medicine or in the history of epidemic diseases or
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of the change in the type of diseases, such as malaria and typhoid fever incident to the development of a new country, and of which Dr. Wishard has been an eye witness and an active participant through the fifty-eight years of his active practice. Dr. Wishard has given a vivid portrayal of these features in his presidential ad- dress before the Indiana State Medical So- ciety, May 1, 1889. It is published in the Transactions of that year and also in the Indiana Medical Journal of June, 1889. The medical man of Dr. Wishard's boyhood started on his morning round with full pill bags and especially abund- ant supplies of salts, oil and senna. Fifty or sixty patients were to be seen; the ronnd was forty or fifty miles, and took from twelve to twenty-four hours. The road was a bridle path through the dense forest from one hamlet to another, across swamps and ponds of water. The creeks now dry were always full; the water level of the country was ten to twelve feet high- er than it now is. A frequent change of horses was necessary, and those were stationed in different neighborhoods. Three or four horses were worn out in one sickly season. The dysentery of 1850 and '51 was a notable and deadly epi- demic. Children and old people were the victims. It was at its height in July and August and was followed in Septem- ber by typhoid fever. Dr. Wishard recalls that during that summer he was called to see six infants that were dead when he reached the settlement, usually four to twelve hours after the call was sent. He
tired out four horses, slept in his saddle, and for two weeks only removed his clothing to make a necessary change, and yet, in spite of the summer and autumnal epidemics, the population increased stead- ily. Quoting from an address delivered by Dr. Wishard before the Indiana State Medical Society in 1889: "The good old dame of the 'olden time' would point yon to her ten or a dozen promising sons and daughters, the joy of her home and pride of her heart and the hope of her old age. We now have presented to us too often one son or daughter with a poodle dog; most likely the poodle dog only, as the future hope of that blighted household." Dr. Wishard continnes: "Let not our young men debase their calling for filthy lucre, but keep the professional robe unsullied from this offense against the laws of God and man." It is unnecessary to go further. Enough is told to indicate the thorny road trav. ersed by Dr. Wishard and his comrades. Some of those brave compeers are pre- served to memory in a paper on "Medi- cal Men and Medical Practice in the Early Days of Indianapolis," read by Dr. Wishard before the Marion County Med- ical Society December 6, 1892, and pub- lished in the Indiana Medical Journal for January, 1892, and ordered published in the Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society during the same year. Dr. Wishard has always taken an active part in medical organizations. There was no State society when he entered the practice. Indianapolis had a local so-
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ciety, and in May, 1849, issued a call for a State medical convention the following month. The society was organized June 6, 1849. There were twenty-eight mem- bers, sixteen from Indianapolis. Of the charter members only four remain-Drs. Thomas W. Florer, now resident of Tex- as; Jolm M. Gaston, P. H. Jameson of Indianapolis, and the subject of this biog- raphy. Dr. Wishard has been a member of the American Medical Association al- most from the time of its organization. He was president of the Indiana State Medical Society in 1889 and at that time made the remarkable address "Medical Retrospect of Fifty Years," from which this sketch has already been enriched. In religion, Dr. Wishard is and has been a Presbyterian of liberal and progressive type. His house has always been the headquarters of both home and foreign missionary movements in this city. He has been an elder of the church for fifty- two years and has represented the In- dianapolis Presbytery at New York, Phil- adelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Port- land, Oregon. In most of these travels he has been accompanied by his devoted wife, who has been his constant compan- ion and sympathizer during his entire professional life. Dr. Wishard's long career as a husband and father, citizen and soldier, public and church officer and active practitioner of medicine in the pio- neèr regions of Indiana and with equal facility and success in her capital city for a period of twenty-two years, has been
here briefly portrayed. He never went to school outside of a log cabin. He had for teacher only a good father and mother, a backwoods farm, a few secular books and the Holy Scriptures. To these op- portunities Dr. Wishard added a prime essential-never failing good health and descent from a long-lived family. His father's family averaged eighty-five to ninety years, and Dr. Wishard gives prom- ise of yet longer lease of life. The sub- ject of this sketch has been continuously engaged in the practice of medicine in Marion and Johnson counties for fifty- eight years. He is now just rounding out his eighty-third year, is hale and hearty and is in the active practice of his pro- fession. He is to-day a well-known pro- fessional figure on the streets of Indianap- olis. He drives his own horse; he makes frequent niglit visits; is a faithful attend- ant of the Marion County Medical So- ciety. He takes an active part in church work; he wields a ready and trenchant pen; is a logical and convincing discus- sant and a most charming conversational- ist. "Age has not withered nor custom staled his infinite variety," and to-day "his natural force is not abated." Dr. Wishard would have graced a pulpit or been an ornament to the bar; or brought dignity and virtue into political life, had his desires led him along any one of these pursuits, rather than to practice medicine. In 1840 Dr. Wishard was mar- ried to Harriet N. Moreland, daughter of the Rev. John R. Moreland, the second
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pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Indianapolis. Nine children have been born to them-four sons and five daugh- ters. The first four, one son and three daughters, died in infancy and childhood. The others are living. One of his sons, Dr. William N. Wishard, was for seven years the superintendent of the City Hospital. and is now one of the professors of the Medical College of Indiana. Under his superintendency the hospital was rebuilt, and organized upon a modern basis. The Flower Mission Training School was es- tablished, and the hospital took first rank with similar charities. Another son, Al- bert W., is a well-known attorney of the city, and was a member of the State Sen- ate, session of 1892-3, and is now United States district attorney for ludiaua. The third son, Dr. George W., practiced med- icine for a time with his father in In- dianapolis and is now engaged in the mortgage-loan business in St. Paul, Min- nesota. The daughters are active work- ers in the women's charities of the city. Harriet J. was for three years State sec- retary of the Young People's Society, Christian Endeavor, organized in 1888, of which society Elizabeth M., the youngest daughter, was the first secretary, serv- ing a term of four years, when she re- signed and was made secretary of the Young People's Department of the Home Missionary Society of the Presbyterian church, and was engaged in this work in New York three years, when she resigued. Both daughters now reside with their parents in Indianapolis.
JOHN W. PENCE.
Jolın Wesley Pence, for the past forty- five years a resident of Anderson, is de- scended from English-German ancestry. The old country orthography of the name, Pentz, was modified into the present form when representatives of the family were transplanted to American soil. His fath. er, Cyrus P. Pence, born in Rockingham county, Virginia, was brought up to the trade of tanner and followed the occupa- tion successfully both in his native State and Indiana. His mother, Eliza Littell, of English descent, was also a Virginian, born in New Market, Shenandoah county. Cyrus P. Pence and Eliza Littell were reared and married in their native State, remaining there until 1837, when they emigrated with their young family from the Shenandoah Valley to Frankfort, Clinton county, Indiana. John Wesley Pence was born at Frankfort, February 23, 1839, and lived there during the first fourteen years. The settlement was com- paratively new and the advantages were limited. The terms of school were re- stricted to the winter months, text books were few and the standard of qualifica- tion for teachers was low. His early op- portunities of acquiring education, con- fined to the indifferent public schools, were improved to the best purpose. His perceptive faculties were acute and his mind was vigorously active, so that he was able to lay the substantial founda- tion of his subsequent broad and liberal business education. He was sufficiently
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advanced to teach a district school at the age of eighteen and was so employed during the winter months, for the next two years, assisting his father in the tan- nery the remainder of the time, as he had done from the time he was old enough to work. The family removed to Ander- son in 1853, where at the age of twenty John W. was employed as clerk in the office of the county auditor. His genius for keeping accounts and for general clerical duties was made apparent by the introduction of business methods and the systematic conduct of the complicated affairs of the auditor's office, and he was at different times employed as deputy in all of the county offices except that of clerk. In 1863 he went to the Pacific coast and spent two years in California and Nevada. Upon returning to Ander- son he was first employed in a clerical position in the office of the Bee Line rail- road and in 1866 was appointed station agent, retaining the office for eight years, and resigning in 1874 to assist in organ- izing the Madison County National Bank. In this bank, which was one of the sound- est commercial and financial institutions ever organized in the county, he was suc- cessively assistant cashier, vice-president and cashier. During the last five years of its separate existence, Mr. - Pence served the bank as cashier. In 1884 it went into liquidation and then united with the bank- ing house of N. C. Mccullough & Co., known as the Citizens' Bank. In 1885 he was appointed postmaster of Anderson by President Cleveland and served four
years. On leaving the office in 1889 he made a tour of Europe, extending his tra- vels to Palestine and Egypt and up the Nile, remaining abroad one year. Re- turning home in 1890 he resumed his former occupation as cashier of the bank- ing house of N. C. Mccullough & Co., a position which he has continued to hold. Politically Mr. Pence is a Jeffersonian- Jackson Democrat, by inheritance, affilia- tion and choice; but when his party in 1896 departed from the ancient landmarks and rejected the cherished traditions as to a sound monetary standard, he repudiat- ed the platform and its candidate, cast- ing his vote for McKinley, as the repre- sentative of sound money, and "the choice of two evils." He never held an elective office but that of councilman for the city of Anderson, to which he was elected in 1877 without seeking it. He served one term and was not a candidate for re- election. Mr. Pence has a penchant for traveling and is a careful, intelligent oh- server. In 1894 he made a tour of Mex- ico, visiting seventeen states of the Re- public, taking especial notice of the prod- ucts of the country and the characteristics of the people, thus gaining a large amount of interesting and useful information. He has never held membership in any church or secret society. His religious belief is probably best defined as agnosticism. He is a gentleman of simple tastes and ex- emplary habits, plain in address, honest in his purposes and performances, gen- erous in his disposition and sincere in his intercourse with fellowmen. Bigotry and
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intolerance are foreign to his nature and he holds the popular esteem because he is an estimable citizen. John W. Pence was married in October, 1869, at Newcas- tle, to Sarah E. Mowrer, a native of Penn- sylvania. The only child born of this union, Robert N., died August 31, 1876, at the age of six years.
HARRY B. SMITH.
Col. Harry B. Smith, of Indianapo- lis, was born October 20, 1859, at Browns- burg, Hendricks county, Indiana. In the year 1820, his grandfather, who had come, a pioneer, to Indiana, settled in Hendricks connty, and here his son, F. P. Smith, the father of this subject, was reared and for many years transacted business as a mer- chant. In 1866 he moved to Indianapolis, where he has continued to follow the same line of occupation up to the present. Harry B., a lad of seven at the time the family became established in the city, en- tered the public schools, in which he took the prescribed course, graduating in 1877. After completing his school life he was for twelve years associated with his fath- er in the mercantile business, and sub- sequently was for a time manager of the Indiana Tank Line. In 1892 he organized the Crescent Oil Company, Incorporated, of which he became president,-a post he has since held continuously. Colonel. Smith has been both interested and ac- tive in politics during all of his mature life. He early identified himself with the
Republican party, and his career as a voter began by helping to swell the ma- jority that elected Garfield to the Presi- deney. In 1886 he was made a member of the board of aldermen of Indianapolis; in 1893 the Republican Central Commit- tee appointed him its chairman, and in the following year he was nominated for county auditor, his election occurring the succeeding autumn. He is now serving his second term in the last-named position, having been re-elected in 1898. Colonel Smith is a man of confident convictions and unimpeachable integrity; and his ca- reer as a public official has been marked throughout by a conscientious recogni- tion of the rights and privileges of the people. He is of a highly social and gen- erous temperament, yet in his public capa- city shows favor to friends only in so far as is wholly compatible with honor and his unbiased judgment. From his youth he has been more or less interested in things military, and his attainments in this direction brought him into the field during our recent war with Spain. He first entered the National Guards of In- diana, as a private, in 1877, since which time he has been successively promoted until made colonel of the Second Regi- ment. Upon the call for troops in April, 1898, Colonel Smith responded and his regiment became enrolled as the 158th In- diana Volunteers. He was sent first to Chickamauga, equipped for active ser- vice, and thence to Knoxville, Tennessee, being encamped in the latter place for five months. He was assigned to the Second
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Division, First Army Corps, and was for a large share of the time commanding the Second Brigade. His regiment was mus- tered out of service November 4, 1898, and the Colonel returned to Indianapolis, quietly resuming there his official duties. Colonel Smith is a Mason, having attained to the thirty-second degree in that order, and is a member of the K. of P. He is a family man, having been married on March 9, 1881, to Miss Lillie Boynton, daughter of Dr. Charles S. Boynton, of Indianapolis, one of the city's most emi- nent physicians. Colonel Smith is a man whose upright and genial character wins and holds the affection of many friends; nor is the circle limited to his home city. He is known throughout the State, and his popularity is not due merely to the admiration inspired by him as a man of sterling parts, but is instinct with a warmer, more personal element in all with whom he has clasped hands and ex- changed social amenities. Into whatever field of usefulness his versatile abilities have led him, his work has always been earnest, his energies productive; and while earning a material competency, he has gained, in his early prime, a place in the ranks of Indiana's substantial and honored citizens.
JOHN F. WALLICK.
John Fahnestock Wallick of Indianap- olis, was born March 2, 1830, in Tasca- rora Valley, Juniata county, Pennsyl-
vania. When he was twelve years of age his father died, and by the misman- agement of his estate on the part of his executors, the boy was left no means of support and had to seek his own live- liliood. Blessed with a rich native en- dowment of energy, and the spirit of en- terprise, the course of his life has been always forward and upward, until to-day he stands as one of the foremost citizens of Indianapolis, and in its world of busi- ness is a conspicuous figure as district superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Significant of his executive ability and the strenuous effort and application which he has given to his work, is the rapid development of that branch of the Western Union Company's business over which he has had control. In 1856, when the youthful concern was given its name of the Western Union Tele- graph Company, one man was sufficient to conduct its entire business; at pres- ent one hundred and fifty persons find em- ployment in the offices alone, which are located in the fine building on the corner of Meridian and Pearl streets, with branches in various parts of the city. The first fourteen years of Mr. Wallick's life were spent in his native county in Pennsylvania. He then, in 1844, went to Andesville, a country town in the same State, obtaining there employment in a general store, his connection with which lasted for six years. He then re- moved to Wooster, Ohio, where he se- cured a position as clerk in the post-office; and this change proved a long step in
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the direction of his life work. The post- master at Wooster at that time was Mr. T. T. Eckert, who is now the president of the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany; and the telegraph business of the place being carried on at the postoffice and under the direction of Mr. Eckert, his ambitious clerk was given the opportunity of becoming a practical operator. In 1832 young Wallick left Wooster and took up his residence at Indianapolis, which city has since been his home. Here, he at first had charge of the Wade telegraph office, in the Johnson building, on the site of the present Stevenson building. The business of this office was so small that Mr. Wallick was its sole operator. There was, however, a rival line-the O'Reilly-and the telegraphing of the place being divided between the two of- fices, neither got enough to pay expenses. This state of things led, in 1853, to the combining of the two offices at Indian- apolis, Mr. J. W. Chapin being manager and Mr. Wallick assistant. This joint concern was styled the Ohio, Indiana & Illinois Telegraph Company; and Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, was lessee and general manager. A few months later, on the resignation of Mr. Chapin, Mr. Wallick succeeded to the po- sition of manager, and served in same until the beginning of 1864, since which time he has been superintendent of the district of Indiana. This district includes not only the greater part of the state whose name it bears, but sections of Illi- nois, Ohio and Michigan as well. Withj.
the early advantage of a practical knowl- edge of telegraphy, Mr. Wallick has throughout his busy carcer continued to study the subject, not alone for its own sake, but in its relation to the vast field of electrical science, his interest having a rare stimulus in his intimate acquaint- ance with the famous Thomas A. Edi- son. Mr. Wallick was identified with the early operations of the telephone service in this State. The construction of the Edison Exchange at Indianapolis by the Western Union Telegraph Company was under his supervision, as were also the first telephone exchanges established at Evansville, LaFayette and Richmond. After the consolidation of Edison and Telegraph Companies' interests with the American Bell Telephone Company, and the formation of the Central Union Tele- graph Company, which now operates one hundred and seventy-five exchanges in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, Mr. Wallick was elected on the board of directors of the latter company, and has continued a member of that board up to the pres- ent time. He has also been connected with several other business enterprises in this State; is now vice-president of the American District Telegraph Company of Indiana. Rising as he has done step by step, his sympathies are keenly awake to the efforts of others in their upward struggle, whether they may be in his own employ or met in other fields of industry; and he is known and honored in the city of Indianapolis, with whose activities he has been identified for nearly half a cen-
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tury, for his unfailing generosity in con- tributing to charities and all public ven- tures of merit. In politics Mr. Wallick has never taken a prominent part, but his vote always falls on the Republican side. For thirty-five years he has been a member of the order of Odd Fellows, and has officiated in its most honorable posts in the State, including representation from Indiana to the Sovereign Grand Lodge. He is at present chairman of the board of trustees of the Indiana Grand Lodge Hall, and member of the Grand Lodge of Indiana. Mr. Wallick has also been connected with the Young Men's Christian Association work of this State, being a member of the executive commit- tee and treasurer of the State Association since 1887, a period of over twelve years. He is essentially social in his tendencies, and has thereby won a multitude of fast friends. Mr. Wallick was married on June 10, 1862, to Miss Mary A. Martin. The union took place in Rahway, New Jersey, the home of Miss Martin. Of the nine children born to them, eight are living. Mr. Wallick is interested in church matters, himself and Mrs. Wal- lick being members of the Second Pres- byterian church.
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