USA > Indiana > Lake County > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of Lake County, Indiana, with a compendium of history 1834-1904 > Part 21
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Mr. Friedrich has been a Democrat ever since entering the ranks of American citizenship, and is loyal and public-spirited in his attachment to his adopted land. He is a member of the Lutheran church, and also af- filiates with the Masonic fraternity at Hammond.
He was married in 1870 to Miss Mary H. Ness, also a native of Ger- many. They are the parents of three children: William H., who is at home, and who married Miss Ida Ross, of North Judson: Dr. L. M., of Hobart : and Jacob O., of Berwyn, Illinois.
GEORGE W. YOUNG.
George W. Young, a prominent farmer on section 32, Ross township, has lived in Lake county most of his life. He is almost a native son of the county since he was born very close to the line between this and Porter county. Outside of eleven years spent in business in Chicago, he has devoted most of his active years to farming, with such success that he is numbered among the representative men of that class in this section of Lake county. He is a man of ability in whatever enterprise he undertakes, and has more than once been influential in community affairs, having a public-spirited de- sire to further the material and social welfare of the county which has so long been his home.
He was born just across the line in Porter county. Indiana, February 25, 1852, a son of D. L. and Lovina (Guernsey ) Young, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Canada, whence she came to Lake county in young womanhood. His father came to Lake county about 1850, and died here in his sixty-second year. He followed the occupations of farining. carrying the mail and keeping hotel in Hobart. He was a well known old citizen, both of Lake and Porter counties, owning land in both counties. He carried the mail between Lake station and Crown Point. He was a life-long Republican. His ancestors were German. His first wife died at the age of thirty, having been the mother of two daughters and four sons, of whom four died young. George W., the only living son, has a sister, Emma L., wife of Henry Cunningham. Mr. D. L. Young, by his second marriage, had three children, and the two living are D. L. and Malida, the latter the wife of Charles Miller.
ge yr young
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Mr. Young was reared and educated in Lake and Porter counties, and for several years after taking up active work remained at home assisting his father on the farm. In 1876, after his marriage, he went to Chicago, where for eleven years he was engaged in the ice business, being located on Twelfth street near Union. He sold out in 1887 and returned to Lake county, where he has since followed farming. He has a well-improved farm of two hundred and fifty acres, and he raises general products, stock, and does dairy- ing, making it all a very profitable enterprise.
Mr. Young has been a life-long Republican and cast his vote for Hayes, and at one time held the office of supervisor of the township. He is a mem- ber, at Hobart, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, No. 333, and the Independent Order of Foresters, No. 141, at Hobart.
He married, in 1876. Miss Susan S. Cunningham, who died October 3. 1890, having been the mother of six children: Carrie L .: George .A. : Del- bert E .; Harry L .: Louie L. : and Joseph W., deceased. The three eldest were born in Chicago, and the others in Lake county. Mr. Young was mar- ried in Lake county, Indiana, in 1892, to Mrs. O. M. Young, and one son was born, Isaac Lane. aged eleven, in the fourth grade. Mrs. Young is a native of Ohio, born in 1855 and was reared in Ohio and Indiana and edu- cated in the latter state.
HON. JOHANNES KOPELKE.
Hon. Johannes Kopelke, of Crown Point, is a lawyer of established reputation for ability and legal learning in northwestern Indiana, is an ex- senator of the state and has taken a prominent part in local and state politics, and throughout his career in this city of nearly thirty years has been a leader of public opinion and progress and more than once has been the aggressive spirit in carrying out reforms and suppressing abuses and in promoting and supporting the highest interests of social and institutional life.
He was born at Buchwald, near Neustettin, Prussia, June 14, 1854. His father, Ferdinand Kopelke, was an Evangelical Lutheran minister. His mother was Sophia Erbguth, and her grandmother was a sister of the famous Prussian General York, who took the first step leading to the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1813. and was afterward made a count and field marshal by the king of Prussia.
15
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Mr. Kopelke gained his early education in the people's schools of Germany, and from these entered a gymnasium, wher he continued the education which in America is offered by the high schools and colleges. From 1865 to 1871 he had a thorough grounding in the literary branches, especially the languages, in this typical German educational institution, and in the latter year, when seventeen years old, he came to the United States. He obtained his professional training in the law at the University of Michi- gan, which he attended from 1874 to 1876, graduating in the spring of the latter year. He has been fond of study from his boyhood days to the present, and while in the gymnasium he gained many prizes for scholarship, and was also a member of the society called "Thought Chips." composed of the members of the first class or "Prima."
In April, 1876, Mr. Kopelke came to Crown Point and entered upon the career which has since been productive of so much honor to himself and benefit to the community. His German scholarship attracted tlie atten- tion of Hon. Thaddeus S. Fancher. a distinguished member of the bar at Crown Point, who offered young Kopelke a partnership in his large practice, which the latter accepted and continued until 1879. and since then he has managed his increasing legal interests alone. He has enjoyed a large private practice, and his connection with litigation of a public nature has won him no small degree of fame in this part of the state. One of his cases to attract the most attention was the one involving the constitutionality of the fee and salary law, in 1891. He was also, as the assistant of Attorney General Ketcham, connected with the famous fight made to suppress racing and gambling institutions at Robey. For a number of years he has had all the professional business he could well manage, and his time and energies have often been called to other matters. For a time he held the rank of major on the staff of Governor Gray.
Mr. Kopelke allied himself with the Republican party when he first began casting his vote, but in 1882 he found his opinions to consist more harmoniously with those of the Democracy, and he has been a stanch advo- cate of that party ever since. In 1884 he was chosen presidential elector from the Tenth Indiana district, and thus cast one of the votes which placed Grover Cleveland in the presidential office. In 1891 he was elected to represent Lake and Porter counties in the state senate, and his career as a
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
legislator was especially noteworthy in its results. He served on the judiciary and other important committees during both sessions of his term of office. He became prominent as the originator and promoter of measures for the welfare of the state, and he also carried through some remedial legis- lation regarding matters of practice and procedure. He was active in pro- curing the new charter for the city of Indianapolis, and his influence was strongly felt in behalf of the tax law which redeemed the state from bank- ruptcy. Senator Kopelke was the Democratic nominee for the office of appellate judge in 1898, but the state went strongly Republican that year.
Mr. Kopelke is an Episcopalian in religious faith. He has never mar- ried. His long identification with Crown Point makes him one of the most highly esteemed citizens, and his life has been praiseworthy and fruitful in good results from whatever standpoint it is regarded.
HENRY P. SWARTZ, M. D.
For thirty-three years Dr. Henry P. Swartz was engaged in the practice of medicine and the conduct of a drug store at Crown Point, and is now closely and actively identified with business interests as president of the Commercial Bank. Thus, for many years he has been one of the forceful and honored factors in professional and financial circles, and his influence has not been a minor element in public affairs in northwestern Indiana. He has attained to prominence through the inherent force of his character, the cxercise of his native talent and the utilization of surrounding opportunities, and he has become a capitalist whose business career has excited the admira- tion and won the respect of his contemporaries.
Dr. Swartz was born at Spring Mills, Center county, Pennsylvania, July 12, 1841. The family is of German lineage and was founded in America by the grandfather of Dr. Swartz, who settled in the Keystone state. There the father. Jacob Swartz, was born and reared, and by occupa- tion he became a stonemason. He also followed farming and on leaving the east he removed to DeKalb county, Illinois, where he worked at farming. He also became the owner of a tract of land and carried on general agri- cultural pursuits. Politically he was a Democrat, and was a member of the Lutheran church. His death occurred when he was sixty-three years of age. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Catherine Mosser, was also a
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
native of Pennsylvania and died in Freeport, Illinois, in January, 1903, in her eighty-eighth year. They were the parents of ten children, three daugh- ters and seven sons, all of whom reached adult age, and with the exception of the eldest, who died at the age of sixty-six years, all are yet living.
Dr. Swartz is the third child and third son of the family, and was reared in the place of his nativity until thirteen years of age, during which time he attended the public schools of Pennsylvania. On going to Illinois he became a student in the public schools of that state and assisted his father in farm work until twenty years of age. August 4. 1861, he enlisted as a member of Company A, Fifty-second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, becoming a private in the ranks of the Union army, with which he served until the close of the war. In the meantime he re-enlisted in the same company and regiment in 1863, and thus as an honored veteran he continued with the boys in blue. He was promoted to the position of commissary sergeant of his regiment, and after his re-enlistment he was made quartermaster. but this position was conferred upon him so near the close of the war that he was mustered out as commissary sergeant. He participated in all of the battles with Sherman's forces and also made the celebrated march to the sea. His regiment brought the prisoners from Ft. Donelson to Chicago and returned by way of Paducah, Kentucky, and Shiloh. Mr. Swartz was with the regiment at the grand review in Washington, D. C., the most celebrated military pageant ever seen on the western hemisphere, and in July, 1865, he received an honorable discharge. At the battle of Shiloh Dr. Swartz was severely wounded, being shot through the body by a minie ball. This occurred in April, 1862, and October had arrived ere he was able to rejoin his regiment at Corinth. The succeeding morning he entered the battle at that place and was slightly wounded on the right side. which caused him to remain for four weeks longer in the hospital.
When the country no longer needed his services Dr. Swartz took up his residence in Freeport, Illinois, and pursued a two years' course of study in Rush Medical College of Chicago. He then engaged in the drug business as a clerk for his brother in Freeport. Illinois, where he remained until 1871, when in the month of December of that year he located in Crown Point, Indiana. Here he established a drug store, which he conducted in connec- tion with the practice of medicine. He has here been engaged in practice
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for more than thirty-two years and has always maintained a position in the foremost ranks of the representatives of the medical fraternity in this portion of the state. Reading, experience and observation have continually broad- ened his knowledge and kept him in touch with the progress of the times. Dr. Swartz is also president of the Commercial Bank of Crown Point, and as chief executive officer of the institution his sound judgment and business ability are frequently called into use and have contributed in large measure to the successful conduct of the institution.
In 1868 Dr. Swartz was united in marriage to Miss Mary Frances Bell, a daughter of William and Mary (Atkins) Bell. She was born in Elmira, New York, and during her infancy her mother died so that she was reared by an aunt. Mrs. Kimball, of Freeport, Illinois. She was a graduate of the high school there and pursued a literary course at Aurora, Illinois. She was afterward employed in the postoffice department at Freeport. Illinois. by her uncle. General S. T. Atkins. To Mr. and Mrs. Swartz have been born four children: Carrie Belle, at home: Harry D., who is assisting his father in the drug store: Mamie G., the wife of Walter I. Coble. of Chicago: and Catherine C., the wife of Alonzo D. Shoup, of Chicago.
Dr. Swartz is a charter member of Lake Lodge No. 152. F. & A. M .. and has been a life-long Republican. He served as township trustee for a number of years, was president of the Commercial Club for two years and has taken an active interest in all public matters-social, political and educa- tional. He is a man of distinct and forceful individuality, of broad men- tality and most mature judgment, and has left and is leaving his impress upon professional and financial interests in northwestern Indiana. He has contributed to the advancement of the general welfare and prosperity of the. city in which he makes his home, and at the same time has so conducted his private business interests as to win gratifying success.
DAVID C. ATKINSON.
David Clarence Atkinson, attorney-at-law at Hammond, is one of the young members of the bar of Lake county, and during his five years' practice in Hammond has gained a most creditable degree of success. He has also some business interests in the city and various properties in the county. He
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is a public-spirited man, capable and stanch in his citizenship, and thoroughly representative of the best interests of his city.
Mr. Atkinson was born near Oxford. Benton county, Indiana, April 8. 1870. a son of Robert M. and Nancy E. (McClimans) Atkinson, both natives of Ohio. The family history goes back to the English Quaker settlement of Pennsylvania in 1682, when the first Atkinson ancestors settled there. Of such forefathers were Josephi and Susanna ( Mills) Atkinson, both natives of Pennsylvania, and who were married there, becoming the parents of eleven children. They were the great-grandparents of David C. Atkin- son. Joseph was a weaver by trade, but later came to Ohio and took up farming. He bought two hundred acres of land in Clinton county, but fifteen years later, through a defective title, lost his purchase money and all his effects, and after that farmed the place on the shares until his death in 1830. He was one of the pioneers of the state.
Thomas M. Atkinson, the tenth child in the family of Joseph and Susanna Atkinson, was born in Pennsylvania, but came to Ohio in early youth. He was educated in a log schoolhouse, and mainly by his own efforts secured a good education. He was an eager and intelligent reader. and possessed a fine library. At the age of twenty years he married Miss Frances Head, and then moved to Greene county, Ohio, where he bought two hundred acres of military land and engaged in farming. He afterwards became one of the pioneers of Benton county, Indiana, where he herded cattle, and drove them to market at Philadelphia. He was a vigorous and active man, and when he had already rounded the sixtieth turn on life's journey he walked all the way from Benton county to Philadelphia to attend the Centennial celebration of 1876. He had also planned to walk to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, but died the preceding winter at the ad- vanced age of eighty-three. He was first a Quaker in religious faith but later espoused the Spiritualistic faith. He was a prominent man in his community. He was one of the first commissioners of Benton county, and in 1865 he represented Benton and White counties in the lower house of the Indiana legislature. He was an abolitionist and later a Republican. In 1830 he traded a horse worth fifty dollars to Luke Conner for two thousand acres of what were known as the "lost lands" in the south part of Benton county. He soon afterward sold this claim for one hundred dollars, but
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in 1848 purchased part of it back at thirteen dollars an acre, and moved his family to the land, on which he lived until a few years before his death. The land became very valuable and most productive farming property. He and his sons subsequently bought up nearly all the original two thousand acres, and also owned twelve hundred acres besides. His wife also lived to a good old age, passing away when eighty-one years old, and they were the parents of twelve children, six sons and six daughters. Nine of these sons and daughters likewise attained to length of years, and they were all farmers or farmers' wives.
Robert M. Atkinson, the son of Thomas MI. Atkinson, was a farmer and stock-raiser in Benton county, and one of the county's most highly esteemed citizens. He served several terms as commissioner of Benton county. He died there in February, 1881. at the age of fifty-six years. His wife survived him until August, 1889, at which time she was fifty-five years old. She was a Methodist. They were the parents of six children, five sons and one daughter, as follows: Morton C., of Oxford, Indiana; Thomas L., of Toledo, Ohio: Wilbert M., of Benton county; David C., of Hammond; Alice, wife of William Forsythe, of Indianapolis; and Curtis, of Oxford, Indiana. Nancy E. Atkinson, the mother of these children. was a daughter of William and Nancy ( Pearson) McClimans, who were parents of twelve children. Her father was of Irish descent, and her mother of German ancestry. Her father lived in Ohio, and died there past middle life, in 1840.
David C. Atkinson was reared on his father's farm in Benton county. He received his early education in the district schools and then at the Oxford. Indiana, high school. He later entered the preparatory department of the State University, took the regular course in the university, graduating in 1893. In the following year he was a student in the University of Chicago, and received the degree of Master of Philosophy. His law studies were pursued at the Northwestern University Law School, where he was graduated in 1896 with the degree of LL. B. He was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of Illinois, and on moving to Indianapolis was admitted to the Indiana bar in September, 1896. He carried on active practice in Indianapolis until March, 1899, and then opened his office in Hammond, which he has made the scene of his activities ever since.
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY.
Mr. Atkinson is a member of Hammond Lodge No. 210, K. of P., also of Royal League Council No. 38. He is a member of the Hammond Club. In politics he is a Republican, and he and his wife have church membership with the Plymouth Congregational church at Indianapolis. In addition to his pleasant home at 368 South Hohman street, he is interested in farm property. He is secretary of the Dermicilia Manufacturing Company. Mr. Atkinson married. in June. 1895. Miss Lillian Knipp. a daughter of Fred and Pauline (Youche) Knipp. They have one daughter. Helen.
HIRAM H. MEEKER.
Hiram H. Meeker, the well known nurseryman and fruit grower of Crown Point, has been identified with this town for thirty-five years. com- prising the latter half of a very busy and useful life, and his energies have been directed along several different lines of activity. He is one of the sur- viving veterans of the Civil war, in which he served until he was disabled, and it was only a few years after that conflict that he took up his residence in Crown Point, where mercantile interests, farming and tree culture and small fruit growing have at varions times taken up his attention.
Mr. Meeker was born in Wyoming county, Pennsylvania, March 10, 1835, a son of Joseph and Anna ( Bronson) Meeker, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter of Connecticut. He is the third child and second son of the family of six children, all of whom grew to adult years.
Mr. Meeker was reared on a farm in his native place and was educated in the common schools, remaining with his father until the outbreak of the Rebellion. In October, 1861, he enlisted in Company A, Fifty-seventh Penn- sylvania Infantry, as a private, and served until he was disabled during a forced march, near Poolville, Maryland. During the battle of Fredericks- burg he was acting steward in the hospital. He received his honorable dis- charge in the spring of 1863. having served for nearly two years. He re- turned home and remained in his native state for a few months and then came to Indiana and located in Carroll county. In 1869 he came to Crown Point and for two years was engaged in the mercantile business, after which for the same period he followed farming. He then bought the stock in the same store and continued merchandising for several years, when he sold out and has since then conducted a nursery which has become one of the important
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H . H. Meeker
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institutions of Crown Point and has maintained a reputation for the quality of its products. He makes a specialty of growing small fruit for the market, most of it being consumed in town. He has about seven acres within the city limits. and also forty acres near by, and also owns one of the nice residences of Crown Point. Mr. Meeker is one of the best posted men in Indiana on the subjects of the growth of small fruits, shrubbery, shade trees and all nursery stock.
Mr. Meeker is a member of the John Wheeler Post No. 161, G. A. R., and a member of the Masonic fraternity. He has been a life-long Republican in politics. He was married January 7, 1864, to Miss Mary A. Bryant. who was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, September 3, 1837, being a daughter of John and Susan (Graves) Bryant, of the William Cullen Bryant branch. There were three daughters born of this union: Addie is the wife of Julius Rockwell, of Crown Point: Alta is the wife of William Thompson, of South Chicago: and Josephine is a popular teacher in the public schools of Crown Point. Mrs. Meeker and her daughter Josephine are leading members of the Presbyterian church.
FRANCIS P. KEILMANN.
Francis P. Keilmann, of St. John, has the distinction of being the longest established merchant of Lake county. He began business in St. John nearly fifty-five years ago, and a continued record of success has been his lot to the present time, when, as the dean of Lake county business men, he enjoys along with his material prosperity the esteem and thorough confidence of all his old friends and associates. He and the family of which he is a member have been identified with Lake county and St. John township since pioneer times, for a period of sixty years, and their enterprise and personal influence have always been reckoned as important factors in the various affairs of the county.
Mr. Keilmann was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, November 25. 1831. His father was Henry Keilmann, a native of the same place. He left the fatherland and brought his family to America in 1840, his first loca- tion being in Portage county, Ohio, but in 1844 he moved to Lake county. Indiana, and settled on a farm in St. John township. His life occupation was farming. He lived to the advanced age of eighty-five years. His wife
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was Mary Elizabeth Ofenloch, who was born in the same province of Ger- many as he, and died in Portage county, Ohio, when thirty-eight years old. They were parents of seven children, and all reached maturity.
Mr. F. P. Keilmann, the fourth son and the fifth child of the family, was nine years old when he landed on American soil, and had already begun his education in his native land. He remained with the family in Portage county for two years, and then, at the age of eleven, went to Chicago with his older brother, Henry. He attended school in that city for some time, and then joined his father on the latter's removal to Lake county. Two years later, however, he returned to Chicago and clerked in a store for four years. He then came to St. John township and became a clerk in his brother Henry's store at St. John. The brothers soon formed a partnership, and the firm of Henry and F. P. Keilmann continued to do business in St. John until 1865, having the premier mercantile establishment of the village. In 1865. after fifteen years' connection, Francis bought the interest of his brother, and then took George F. Gerlach, another well known merchant of St. John. into partnership. continuing thus until 1885. Since that time Mr. Keilmann has carried on his business alone, and no other man in the county has a record for such long connection with mercantile enterprises. He has a large store and a fine general stock valued at about ten thousand dollars. He owns Lake county real estate to the amount of over a thou- sand acres, and also has property in other places. He has always affiliated with the Democratic party, and from 1856 to 1885 was postmaster of St. John.
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