USA > Indiana > Encyclopedia of biography of Indiana > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
65
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
proficient alike in English, in German, and in Spanish. The knowledge of this last language will be of greater and greater value as time rolls on. The boy is born who shall see the day when the general shall mount his horse and lead the column riding from the Rio Grande to the isthmus of Panama, with the flag and the armed men of the Union behind it. The boy is alive who will issue gen- eral orders in Spanish from Morro Castle to a people who will then be citizens of the United States." General Coburn's amendment was adopted and the Spanish language continues to be a part of the course taught at West Point. A bill which became a law, providing head- stones for our Union soldiers in the na- tional cemeteries, was originated and re- ported by him. Another excellent bill which he introduced and carried through the House provided for the prevention of the promotion of officers of the army ad- dicted to the habitual intemperate use of intoxicants or drugs, but this bill, though admitted to be a salutary measure, met defeat in the Senate. He offered a bill providing for the appointment of an American commission to act conjointly with one appointed by the British gov- ernment, looking to the survey of a route for a ship canal connecting the St. Law- rence river and the Great Lakes and capable of allowing the passage of the largest ocean steamers of both nations. This bill was referred to a committee, but never reported. Recently the scheme has been revived under more favorable
circumstances. The publication of the Rebellion Records, which gives to the world all the orders, dispatches and re- ports of both Union and rebel officers, and of which one hundred and fifteen volumes have already been published, was a measure originated by General Co- burn. His career in Congress was marked by a conscientious resistance to all schemes for the extravagant expenditure of the people's money. His term expired in March, 1875, he having been defeated with the Republican ticket at the pre- ceding election, when the Baxter liquor law engendered great hostility to the party. In 1876 he declined to be a can- didate for Congress and in 1880 likewise declined the candidacy for Governor. Since his retirement from Congress he has practiced law at Indianapolis, except while absent from the State as United States commissioner at Hot Springs, Ark- ansas, and as Judge of the Supreme Court of Montana. His services to the city of Indianapolis have been many and varied and are marked by the same public spirit which has distinguished his life as a statesman. As long ago as 1851, when United States post-office buildings were very few in number, he began the agita- tion of the project for such a building in Indianapolis and called a meeting of citi- zens to urge it upon Congress. Although few attended, yet a committee consisting of William Robson, William Sullivan and General Coburn, so enthusiastically worked, both by personal communication and by correspondence, that in a few
66
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
months the measure became a law, and Indianapolis had a public building next after New Orleans and Detroit. General Coburn served for a term as school com- missioner of Indianapolis and was a pioneer in the introduction of manual training into the city schools. He has also taken an active interest in the at- tempt to obtain legislation providing for a capable board of public charities, his plan being to have the board composed of forty or fifty competent men and wom- en-to serve without pay-who would ac- cept the task of inspecting and report- ing upon the State institutions, so that the judgment and care of many instead of few would be brought to bear upon the wards of the State. In the founding of the Indiana Soldiers' Orphans' Home at Knightstown General Coburn played an active part, and also was among the first to advocate the building of a sold- iers' monument, delivering an eloquent address upon this subject at a State sold- iers' mass-meeting held at Indianapolis in 1877. When his hopes were accomplished and the success of the project assured he delivered an oration at the laying of the corner stone of the monument. Probably the city is indebted to him for the salva- tion of Garfield Park. When that pretty breathing place had been neglected for years without fences, bridges, walks, trees or drives, and the city council and aldermen had passed a resolution author- izing it to be leased for five years as it had been for ten years previous, the project was bitterly opposed by General
Coburn, who called and addressed public meetings, sought the influence of the press and succeeded in arousing a wave of public spirit that drowned the project of leasing the park and passed an ordi- nance instead, resulting in its protection and subsequent improvement. He took an important part in organizing the Shade-tree Association in 1854, encourag- ing the planting of trees in public places. While Judge of the Court in 1859 he ordered and had planted a double row of trees around the Court-house square. Mrs. Coburn, formerly Miss Caroline Test, was a daughter of Hon. Charles H. Test of Centerville, Indiana. She was married to General Coburn in 1852. It is given to but few men to look back upon a life so long and so usefully spent as does General Coburn. He has served his fellow-man without any desire for self- aggrandizement and has given to the in- terests of his native city and State his ripest thought and judgment. A man of scholarly tastes and a ready writer, his public speeches and writings bear the mark of scholarship as well as statesman- ship. His time is spent in the practice of his profession and in the pleasant re- flection which is the fruition of a well- spent life.
JOSEPH EASTMAN.
"First Laureate of Humanity; Lo! Science is his poetry. With noblest master-hand sweeps he The harp-strings of Anatomy."
The Century Publishing & Engraving to Chicago
Joseph @stman
67
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
Dr. Joseph Eastman is one of the strong, forceful personalities in the world of medical science. While a citizen of Indianapolis, as far as medicine is con- cerned his interests and services belong to his fellow-beings without any terri- torial limits. From all parts of the coun- try Dr. Eastman is called to conduct those exquisitely skillful operations which have made his name a suggestion of hopefulness to the afflicted. Dr. East- man's biography is interesting and out of the ordinary. Those who have seen him, with his iron-gray hair, his erect and active bearing, his keen eye, read in him the conqueror. The persistent effort of his life has been the mastery of diffi- culties. To him in youth and early man- hood life revealed but a rugged exterior and the unceasing battle which he waged with fate-or fortune, as it may be called-molded the ambitious stripling into the heroic man, for a successful phy- sician must have within him the stuff of which heroes are made. The East- mans, so far as the family records trace, were New Englanders. Abi- gail Eastman, the mother of Dan- iel Webster, was from this same stock. Joseph Eastman, the grandfather of Dr. Eastman, was a citizen of Amherst, Massachusetts. He belonged to a large family of substantial, self-reliant people who weighed for themselves the prob- lems of life and arrived at wise and sensible conclusions. He had four brothers, who were Presbyterian minis- ters, and two sisters, who married Pres-
byterian ministers. One brother, Rev. Ornan Eastman, great-uncle of Dr. East- man, was secretary of the American Tract Society of New York, for a period of forty-two years. In the days when In- dianapolis was but a name and there were less than half a dozen homes in it, Rev. Ornan Eastman journeyed on horse- back from Madison, Indiana, to see an old minister named Ray. His business was to devise plans to raise money to found the American Tract Society. The mother of Dr. Eastman was a native of New York. She was the daughter of a soldier of the War of 1812, who died when she was a child. Rilus Eastman, the father of Dr. Eastman, married Catharine Jipson. He held the office of justice of the peace for twenty-one years and Associate County Judge one term. Dr. Eastman describes his father "as the kindest-hearted man I have ever known." Eleven children comprised this family, and of them was Joseph Eastman, who was born in a small village among the foot-hills of the Adirondacks in Bleeker township, Fulton county, New York, early in the year 1842. When he was but sixteen months old he became a perma- nent member of his grandfather's family, who lived but two miles away. Under his instruction and discipline he re- mained until sixteen years old. Old age and penury at that time so oppressed the aged couple that they gave up housekeep- ing. Joseph Eastman then rejoined his parents, who had moved ten miles away. He went to work as an active country
68
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
boy does, turning his hand to many things. For three years he worked at the blacksmith's anvil, shoeing horses and oxen and repairing machinery for the farmers and was also employed in the factories of the village. His school was the everyday life and the experience of those years, for of real schools he had not more than three months during the first fourteen years of his life. Dr. East- man says of this period of his life that the "persistent effort to help make the liv- ing, to procure fire-wood to keep from freezing in the long, cold winters, exerted its influence in cultivating the spirit of unremitting industry." In 1861 the call to arms met with a ready response. Jo- seph Eastman, nineteen years old, adopted the politics of Lincoln, shoul- dered a musket, and marched away, a member of the Seventy-seventh New York. He was in the battles of Lee's Mills, Warrick Court House, Yorktown and Williamsburg. After this last battle he was left in the mud, with the dead and dying in front of Fort MeGruder, having been in Hancock's charge on that fort. Sick with fever, helpless and neg- lected, he was found by some kindly peo- ple of Williamsburg, and when the de- lirium of fever had passed he found him- self at Mount Pleasant Hospital, Wash- ington, D. C. One day the convalescents -numbering a thousand-were standing in line preparatory to being examined with a view to sending them to the front. Young Eastman was among them. Dr. Charles A. McCall, the chief surgeon of
the hospital, walked down the ranks to satisfy himself personally that no soldier unfit for duty should be returned. His critical gaze fell on Joseph Eastman, pale and trembling with weakness, under the load of knapsack and musket. He tapped him on the shoulder and ordered him to return to his quarters. The volun- teer obeyed, but reluctantly, as he said, "I want to go to my regiment, as there is nothing to do here." Dr. McCall re- plied, "Go into the dispensary and wash bottles." Three days later he noticed young Eastman washing bottles, but also managing to read a medical work which lay on the window sill. From that begin- ning grew the present surgeon and phy- sician. This incident was pleasantly nar- rated by Dr. McCall himself at a recep- tion given in honor of Dr. Eastman and his classmate, Dr. J. T. Johnson, of Wash- ington. Dr. Montgomery, President of the Philadelphia Gynecological Society, was the host at this entertainment, and there were some two hundred physi- cians among the guests. This military company to which Joseph Eastman be- longed and to which he was so ambitious to return was shot to pieces a few weeks later in the battle of Fair Oaks. For three years he remained at the hospital studying surgery, and when he left he had obtained a diploma and a commis sion as first lieutenant and assistant sur- geon, U. S. V., by competitive examina- tion before a board of examining sur- geons. In 1866 Dr. Eastman was on the ill-fated steamship "Evening Star" when
69
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
Captain Winpenny was killed, one of the wheel houses torn off and the vessel so wrecked that it drifted five days and was picked up and tagged through the southwest pass at the mouth of the Mis- sissippi river, thence up to New Orleans. Dr. Eastman followed up his literary studies during his service in the hos- pital by a course at the medical depart- ment of the University of Georgetown, Washington, D. C., also taking private instructions in a general education from Professor Antisell of this same college. His lessons were often learned at the bed- side of his patients and recited when op- portunity offered. In 1866 Dr. Eastman came to Indiana and began practising at Clearmont, Marion county. In a short time he removed to Brownsburg, where he lived for five years. Receiving at that time an invitation to take a chair of anat- omy in a medical college in Indianapolis, he located there in the autumn of 1875. In 1871 he went to New York and took a course in Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- lege, graduating a second time. From the time of his residence in the Capital city his name and fame began to grow. For seven sessions Dr. Eastman taught anat- omy. His specialty in abdominal surgery and the diseases of women gave him high authority, and for twelve years he has been president of the Central College of Physicians and Professor of Abdominal Surgery and Diseases of Women. He is quoted as standard authority on both sides of the Atlantic. By invitation of his profession Dr. Eastman has per-
formed complicated operations in St. Louis, Chicago, Wisconsin, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore, and has also, by invitation, delivered addresses in these cities. In 1891 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Wabash College. At present he is serving his second term as one of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association and is vice president of the board. In 1868 Dr. Eastman was married to Mary K. Barker. They have three children living, Thomas B., A. B., M. D .; Joseph Rilus, M. S., M. D .; and Mary. Of these the two for- mer are young married men in successful practice. Dr. and Mrs. Eastman live in a retired and pleasant country seat at the corner of Fortieth Street and Washing- ton Boulevard. They are members of the Christian church. Since 1863 Dr. East- man has been a Mason. He is now a Knight Templar, a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of the G. A. R. and Loyal Legion. Dr. Eastman has a wide friendship among the prominent citizens of Indianapolis. James Whitcomb Riley, in presenting him with a copy of one of his works, wrote upon the fly-leaf. "To Dr. Eastman, with admiration and esteem," followed by the stanza at the head of this sketch. Dr. Eastman's Sani- tarium is probably the most noted one in Indiana. Standing at the intersection of two beautiful streets, in a convenient yet retired situation, its elegance attracts attention. Its successful management is a source of great pride to its owner and founder. He is acquainted with the
70
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
smallest details of its workings and it op- erates with a quietude and smoothness which say much for the management of its master spirit. Although Dr. Eastman performs hundreds of operations and his sanitarium is always well filled, yet his sympathies have not been blunted. His patients find in him a friend as well as a physician. It is a well-known fact that when Dr. Eastman is alarmed about a patient he can neither eat nor sleep. He patrols his sanitarium, vigilant and wakeful always. His love of trees and grass and flowers has shown itself in the surroundings of this building. Although the grounds are limited every inch is as beautiful as shrubs, trees and grass can make it, and it is perfectly kept. Life has brought him rich rewards in the con- sciousness of trying to do good, and he enunciates his own idea of it when he says, "Success is obtained by that genius of industry which prompts taking pains with the job on hand."
JOHN CAVEN.
1824, in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. His parents, William and Jane (Lang- head) Caven, had little material wealth to bequeath him, but he was endowed with the richer inheritance of buoyant health and a mind which absorbed as its natural sustenance truth, justice and all- gracious sentiments. His early oppor- tunities for imbibing book-lore were but meager, being practically coextensive with the old English Reader and Daboll's Arithmetic. But these rudiments were eagerly gleaned and assimilated, and, thus equipped, his fertile and studious mind proceeded to accumulate the fund of practical knowledge needful as the basis of a legal education. An important ele- ment in this preparation was gained from the fact that he mingled much with labor- ing men and labored with them; for thus was awakened and expanded his under- standing and sympathy with a vast phase of human experience. In the salt works, in the coal mines, as flat boatman, in all of which humble posts he successively served, his judgment was adjusting to a finer balance, his character deepening with a truer appreciation of human rights and fellowship. Thus, by perse- vering self-help, he attained in the prime of his manhood to a broad mental cul- ture, illumined by that truest luster of manner reflected from innate refinement which is never imparted in its genuine- ness by the polishing process of institu- tions. On attaining his majority he went to Indianapolis, where, two years later,
To Great Britain rather than any one of its national divisions, should be con- ceded the ancestral claim to this splendid personality, for English, Irish and Scotch blood are blended in his veins; but to men of John Caven's stamp of mind and heart, inheritance bears an ever diminish- ing significance; the wide world is their fatherland, all mankind their kindred. Hon. John Caven was born April 12, | in 1847, he entered the law office of
The Century Publishing & Engraving to Chicago
Gaven?
71
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
Smith & Yandes as the initial step upon the professional career which he has roy- ally adorned. Both his abilities and in- terests, however, proved too versatile and urgent to be restricted to the mere tech- nical work of a special profession. At the age of thirty-nine he was unanimous- ly elected mayor of Indianapolis, to be in like manner re-elected two years later; and that city, at this time in its formative period, received from his guiding hand a strong forward impulse. In 1868 he was elected to the State Senate by the resi- dents of Marion county, and his four years of office were rife with noble effort and eloquent appeal along lines political, educational and philanthropic. He urged the Fifteenth Amendment and earnestly and successfully toiled for the establish- ment of colored schools. In 1875 he was again nominated by acclamation and elected mayor and held that office for three successive terms, each time doub- ling his former majority. Through all the years of his magistracy his thorough and equitable methods were manifest even in the details of routine work and his labors for the regeneration of the erring were a perpetual proof of his deep-seated belief in human nature and the potency of moral force. Mr. Caven originated the plan which re- sulted in the construction of the Belt Road and Stock Yards at Indian- apolis. Though this proved to be the most important local enterprise ever projected in the city, the scheme met with great opposition from the press and
many influential citizens. While Mr. Caven, the originator of the enterprise, derived no pecuniary benefit from it, some others who had the business sagacity to recognize its merits made great fortunes for themselves. The great benefit to the city and the State more than vindicated the foresight that conceived it, even in the opinion of some of its bitterest oppo- nents, some of whom have become large owners of stock. At the time of the great railroad strike in 1877 Mr. Caven, as mayor of Indianapolis, six hours before the strike commenced, swore in 450 rail-
road men as special policemen, and placed them on guard at the depots and railroad yards and took charge of them personally. Mr. Caven was severely criti- cized for his vigorous action by the press and many prominent citizens, but so well did these men perform their duty that, while in other cities millions of dollars' worth of property were destroyed and many lives lost, in Indianapolis not a drop of blood was shed nor a dollar's worth of property destroyed. A year and a half afterwards a prominent railroad official, speaking of the matter, said: "At the time I severely condemned the course pursued by Mayor Caven, but I now see it was exactly the right thing to do. But the genius of it was to see that it was the right thing to do, and then do it six hours before the strike instead of eigh- teen months after." Mr. Caven is a thor- oughly initiated and drilled member of the Masonic order and is revered for his sincere devotion to its principles. He
72
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
was the first deputy for Indiana of the Supreme Council, A. & A. Rite, Northern Jurisdiction, acting in this capacity for several years. He was also the first wor- shipful master of Mystic Tie Lodge, F. & A. M., which honor he retained for seven years. He was elected and re- elected the first grand chancellor of the K. of P. for Indiana, this being the sole instance of re-election to that office, and he was made the first officer of the first Uniform Rank in Indianapolis. Mr. Caven's life throughout bears the mark of success-that fair degree of worldly success which the best policy-honesty insures, and the far-reaching moral suc- cess which, through his influence, he has achieved. Although past three score and ten he is still hale and hearty and of stately presence. His bachelor life has been in truth a life of "single blessed- ness," in no sense smacking of seclusion or cynicism. Essentially social in tem- perament, he has become entwined with many ties of warm affection, and an abundant progeny of generous and kindly deeds, dispersed among his fellow men, are growing to a fruitful maturity-a lasting honor to their author and a grate- ful boon to humanity.
SYLVESTER JOHNSON.
Sylvester Johnson was born in Union county, Indiana, January 31, 1822. His father was Pleasant Johnson, a native of Bedford county, Virginia, born October,
1795. His grandfather, Nicholas John- son, emigrated with his family to Indi- ana at 1816 and settled in Union county, a part of Wayne county at that time, where he purchased and improved a wild farm. Pleasant Johnson also purchased a farm, on which he lived until 1837, when he moved to Dublin, Wayne county. In 1872 he came with his son Sylvester to Irvington, where he died in 1876. Sylves- ter Johnson's mother, Sarah Huddleston, was born in North Carolina in 1800. She was the daughter of Jonathan Huddle- ston and the eldest of thirteen children. The Huddlestons were of English de- scent and emigrated to America in early colonial times. Young Sylvester was reared on a farm, attending school from two to three months every winter until 1842, when for two terms of five months each he attended Beach Grove Seminary in Union county, which was in charge of his uncle, William Haughton, then and until his death a noted minister of the Society of Friends. The subject of this sketch attributes much of his disposition to engage actively in the reforms of the day to the teaching of this great and good man. For a time he was engaged in teaching a country school in Butler county, Ohio, and it was here that he fought his first battle for temperance in refusing to "treat" the school with intoxi- cants, which was the custom in those days. After leaving Butler county, Ohio, he went to Wayne county, Indiana, and taught for twelve years in Dublin Acade- my, up to 1856. He then left teaching
73
BIOGRAPHY OF INDIANA.
1
and engaged in the mercantile business in Dublin from 1856 to 1861. He was then appointed, under Lincoln's adminis- tration, as mail agent, with run between Indianapolis and Dayton. In this service he remained two years, when he resigned and was elected auditor of Wayne county, where he served two terms of four years each. In 1872 he purchased a tract of land containing 320 acres and laid out the town of Irvington, a suburb of In- dianapolis. In order to make the town most desirable as a place of residence great care was taken in laying out the town site to conform to the contour of the land, with meandering streets along depressions, leaving the high ground for building sites. The village presents the appearance of a beautiful park, with fine residences and cozy cottages surrounded by lovely grounds and shaded by stately trees. To prevent the liquor traffic and keep out that element for all time the following clause was inserted in all the deeds: "The grantee accepts this deed from the grantor with the express agree- ment that his heirs and assigns will not erect or maintain or suffer to be erected or maintained on the real estate herein conveyed any distillery, brewery, slaugh- ter house, soap factory or other establish- ment offensive to the people of said town; that he will not sell or suffer anyone else to sell on said premises any intoxicating liquor except for sacramental, medicinal or mechanical purposes. And he accepts this deed on the further agreement that the right to compel the enforcement of
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.