Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 2

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes > Part 2

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

signed in order to assume the duties of clerk and teller in the bank of his uncle, Stoughton A. Fletcher. With characteristic energy he applied himself to the task of learning all the details of banking. It was a matter of prin- ciple with him to know all that could be known of any business with which he was connected, whether it was farming, railroading, telegraphy, banking or manufacturing. Ultimately he be- came a partner in the bank, associated with F. M. Churchman. In 1868 he was elected president of the Indianapolis Gas Company and held the position for a period of more than ten years. He acquired a thorough, prac- tical knowledge of the process and the cost of making illuminating gas, managing the com- pany's business with rare executive ability. Upon the reorganization of the Atlas Engine Works in 1878 he was chosen president of the company and retained the position until his death. His name, his energy and varied ex- perience combined to build up and establish a manufactory of engines and boilers, unequaled in extent and equipment by any singular con- cern west of the Alleghenies. A visitor at the works would readily discern that the eye of a master was upon every department, and a trained financier of strong mental grasp was managing the business. It is creditable to his humanity that during the long season of de- pression he kept the works running at a loss in order to support the men who had served him long and faithfully. When impossible to employ the whole force at the same time, it was the custom to divide the men, giving em- ployment to some of them one week and others the week following. By this plan all the families dependent upon the works were main- tained. He assisted in organizing the In- dianapolis National Bank and served as one of its directors for many years. At various times he was connected with other institutions and enterprises of importance, always in such a manner as to preserve a high character for honor and integrity.

It was not alone in the domain of private business or commercial affairs that Stoughton A. Fletcher was conspicuously successful. He is entitled to higher honor for his spirit and unselfish devotion to the community interests and welfare. He was one of the earliest pro- moters of the project to establish a new ceme- tery, selected the site of Crown Hill himself, assisted in the organization of the company, and was chosen treasurer of the Cemetery As- sociation upon its incorporation in 1863. Eleven years later he was elected the remainder of his life. The beauty of that silent city is dne very largely to his taste, enterprise and liberality. Under his superintendence the

loveliness of a natural site, impossible to dupli- cate in all the surrounding country, was en- hanced by skillful landscape-gardening. Mr. Fletcher was identified either actively or in sympathy with every enterprise of popular concern in the city. His counsel was sought and his support enlisted. He was at all times relieving want with open-handed liberality, but his benevolence was not exhausted by personal contributions to aid the suffering. He quietly assisted many a worthy young man in defray- ing expenses incident to acquiring an educa- tion. He also united with others to form charitable associations, whose beneficence ex- tends to all deserving poor in the city. He was from the beginning a member of the In- diana State Board of Charities, giving much time and thought to its work. His philan- thropy was comprehensive in scope and pur- pose, assuming other forms than contributions to relieve the destitute. He offered to the city the site of a magnificent park, as a gift condi- tioned only upon its improvement and' main- tenance for the public use stipulated in the conveyance. He endeavored to promote the welfare and reformation of the unfortunate and the criminal. He was president of the first board of trustees of the Indiana Reform- atory for Women and Girls. As this was among the first institutions of its class estab- lished in the United States, its management afforded scope for the practical applications of his broad and wholesome views. He was mar- ried first in 1856 to Miss Ruth Elizabeth Bar- rows, daughter of Elisha Barrows, Esq., of Augusta, Maine, whose life, treasured in the memory of her children, was one characterized by admirable wisdom in the management of affairs, by rare unselfishness and tender devo- tion to her husband and family. She died in 1889. Two sons and two daughters born of this marriage survive: Charles B. and Jesse. who were associated with their father in the business of manufacturing, and continued the management of the Atlas Engine Works after his death ; Mrs. E. F. Hodges, of Indianapolis. and Mrs. James R. Macfarlane of Pittsburg. Pennsylvania. In December, 1891, he was married to Miss Marie Louise Bright, daugh- ter of the late Dr. John W. Bright of Lexing- ton. Kentucky.

Even while most actively engaged in busi- ness Mr. Fletcher found time for travel and study. He has visited the countries of Eu- rope and extended his journey leisurely into Egypt and Palestine, studying the physical condition of foreign countries and peoples suf- ficiently to make intelligent comparison and appreciate the institutions of his own country. During the last few years of his life he trav-

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

eled much in the United States, usually ac- companied by his wife. His health was re- newed and his life prolonged by travel. In many respects he was a remarkable man-re- markable for the equability of his temper and the kindliness of his disposition; for the buoy- ancy of his nature and the adaptability of his powers; for his success in business and his clean, honorable methods; for his perennial courtesy and unfailing generosity. He was a lover of nature, a lover of art and a lover of books. His humanity was large. He had sympathy for his fellow-men and regard for the welfare of his neighbors. He admired the poems of Whittier, expressive of human sym- pathy and kindness. To a gentleness of man- ner, which invited social intercourse, was united a sturdy determination which never faltered and seldom failed of accomplishment. He lived in a pure atmosphere, above petty annoy- ances and contentions, patiently enduring mis- fortune and suffering, quietly enjoying pros- perity and the better things of life. His home was filled with beautiful things, evidences of culture and refinement, which friends enjoyed with him and his family. His character was strong in its integrity; his friendships were sincere and constant. He attested the dignity of labor and exemplified the nobility of a Christian life. The following, quoted from an editorial article in one of the daily newspa- pers, fittingly closes this biographical sketch : "By the death of Stoughton A. Fletcher, In- dianapolis loses one of its oldest native-born citizens and one of its purest and best of any nativity. There are very few men living in the city who were born here as early as 1831, and none born here or elsewhere who better bore without abuse the grand old name of gentle- men than Stoughton A. Fletcher. Some of the older citizens who knew his parents can easily understand from whence he derived the quali- ties that made him so manly and so true, so gentle and so tender, so admirable in all that goes to round out character. It is a great thing for a man to live in the same community sixty- three years, to die in the town where he was born and to leave behind him a record as con- spicuously clean as that which marks the sum- ming np of Mr. Fletcher's life. He would not have had his friends claim that he was a great man. He did not seek notoriety or power, never held office and was not ambitions for distinction of any kind, except the love of his friends, the respect of his neighbors and the willing tribute of all to his absolute integrity and high sense of commercial honor. A worthy son of a most worthy sire, he was true to his ancestry, true to his family and friends, true to all the demands of good citizenship and true

to his own high standard of thinking and acting."

CHRISTOPHER B. COLEMAN. Prominently identified with educational work and with af- fairs of distinctive civic import in Indianap- olis, Professor Christopher Bush Coleman is the incumbent of the chair of modern history in Butler College and he is also corresponding secretary of the Indiana Historical Society. His position in the community eminently en- titles him to representation in this history of Greater Indianapolis and its people.

Professor Coleman was born in the city of Springfield, Illinois, on the 24th of April, 1875, and is a son of Louis Harrison Coleman and Jennie Bush (Logan) Coleman. The an- cestral line is traced back to James Ormsby Coleman, who was a resident of Virginia in the colonial epoch of our national history and who eventually removed thence to Kentucky, of which commonwealth he became a pioneer, having been a wheelwright by trade. He con- tinned to reside in Kentucky until his death, as did also his wife, whose maiden name was Lucy Hawkins. Their son, Hardin Hawkins Coleman, became a citizen of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where he was engaged in the fur- niture business. His wife, whose maiden name was Barbara Ann Hopper, was a daughter of the Hopper who, in 1837, liberated his slaves and removed from Kentucky to Illinois; her mother was a cousin of General William Henry Harrison. One of the sons of Hardin Hawkins Coleman and Barbara Ann (Hopper) Coleman was Louis Harrison Coleman, father of the sub- ject of this sketch.

Louis Harrison Coleman was born at Hop- kinsville, Kentucky, on the 7th of Septem- ber, 1842, and a portion of his early life was passed on a farm near Monmouth, Illinois. After attaining to maturity he became a dry- goods merchant at Bloomington, that state, whence he later removed to Springfield, the capital of Illinois, in which city he continued in the retail dry-goods trade for many years, later becoming a banker and manufacturer. He is a citizen of prominence and influence.

On the 4th of October, 1866, was solemnized the marriage of Louis Harrison Coleman to Miss Jennie Bush Logan, daughter of Hon. Stephen Trigg Logan and America T. (Bush) Logan, whose marriage was recorded under date of June 25, 1823. The founder of the Logan family in America came to this country from Ireland and settled in Augusta County, Virginia, about 1750. His son, Colonel John Logan, was a member of the Virginia legisla- ture and of the constitutional convention of Kentucky in 1799. David Logan, son of Col- onel John Logan and father of Stephen Trigg

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

Logan, removed from Kentucky to Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1832, and in the latter state he passed the residue of his life, having been one of the sterling pioneers of the county in which the capital of the state is located. Stephen T. Logan was an influential factor in public affairs in Illinois, having served re- peatedly as a member of its legislature and also having been a delegate to the state con- stitutional convention of 1847. He was asso- ciated with Abraham Lincoln in the practice of law from 1841 to 1844 and was a delegate to the Chicago convention that nominated Lin- coln for the presidency. He also represented Illinois at the national peace conference in 1860, and in 1872 he was presiding officer of the Republican state convention of Illinois, in the annals of whose history his name is one of distinctive prominence. Mrs. Louis H. Cole- man died in 1891.

Christopher Bush Coleman, the immediate subject of this review, gained his early educa- tional discipline in the public schools of his native city of Springfield, Illinois, in whose high school he was graduated as a member of the class of 1891. In the following year he was graduated in Lawrenceville Academy, at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, after which he was matriculated in Yale University, where he con- tinued his studies for four years and where he was graduated in 1896, with honors, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1896-7 Professor Coleman was a student in Auburn Theological Seminary, at Auburn, New York, and in 1897 he was a student in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1898-9 he attended the University of Chicago, taking the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in the fall of 1899. Since 1900 Professor Coleman has held consecutively the chair of modern history in Butler College, with the exception of twelve months, in 1904-5, passed in European travel and in special study in the University of Berlin, Germany. Since 1908 Professor Coleman has been correspond- ing secretary of the Indiana Historical Society. in whose affairs he maintains a lively and helpful interest. In this connection he is also editor of the Indiana Quarterly Magazine of History, the official paper of the society men- tioned.

In politics Professor Coleman gave his alle- giance to the Republican party until 1908, since which time he has maintained an independent attitude. He is a member of the Downey Ave- nne Christian Church, was president of the Indianapolis Christian Church Union for three vears. has been president of Butler Col- lege Settlement Association since 1907, and is a member of each the executive committee of the Indiana Young Men's Christian Associa-

tion and the Marion County Board of Chari- ties. He is also identified with the Indiana Delta Kappa Epsilon Club, the Indiana Yale Association, the University Club of Indiana, the Indianapolis Literary Club, the Indiana Historical Society, the American Historical Association, the American Geographical So- ciety, the American Political Science Associa- tion, and the Irvington Atheneum, of which he was president in 1905-6 and of which he has been corresponding secretary since 1907.

On the 25th of June, 1901, was solemnized the marriage of Professor Coleman to Miss Juliet Julian Brown, who was educated in Shortridge High School, in Indianapolis, and in Butler College. She is a daughter of Judge Edgar Adelbert Brown and Martha (Julian) Brown, who still reside in Indianapolis, where Judge Brown is a representative lawyer and where he served on the bench of the Circuit Court from 1890 to 1898. Mrs. Coleman's maternal grandfather was Jacob Hoover Julian, who likewise served as judge of the Circuit Court and who was one of the founders of the village of Irvington, now an integral part of the City of Indianapolis. Professor and Mrs. Coleman became the parents of two children, of whom the younger is living. Ruth, born on the 15th of December, 1902, died on the 23rd of December, 1902; and Constance was born on the 18th of January, 1905, in Berlin, Ger- many.

PAUL F. MARTIN, M. D. Dr. Martin holds precedence as one of the representative sur- geons of his native city, where he is now de- voting his attention exclusively to the surgical branch of his profession, in which his special skill is uniformly acknowledged. He was for more than three years superintendent of the Indianapolis City Hospital, giving an able and successful administration of its affairs, and his professional attainments are of high order, the result of natural predilection and the admir- able technical advantages he was afforded in preparing himself for the work of his exact- ing vocation. The doctor enjoys distinctive personal and professional popularity in the capital city and is well entitled to representa- tion in this publication.

Dr. Paul Frederic Martin was born in In- dianapolis, on the 26th of July, 1877, and is a son of Emil and Elise (Kuster) Martin, the former of whom was born in the City of Ber- lin. Germany, in 1840, and the latter in the City of Cologne, Germany, in 1848. The father was reared and educated in his native land and was in his twenty-fifth year at the time of establishing his residence in Indianapolis. where he has since maintained his home and where he has long been prominently identified

Sorophimfrancis , Bishop of Indianapolis

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

with important business interests, being now president of the Indianapolis Chemical Com- pany and being a citizen to whom has ever been accorded the highest measure of confi- dence and esteem. The mother was an infant at the time of her parents' immigration to America and the family located in Indianapolis when she was about two years of age. Here she was reared and educated and has main- tained her home during the long intervening years. The Martin family lineage is traced back to the fine old Norman stock, and the Kuster family is of French origin, the original orthography of the name having been Custre.

Dr. Martin attended the public schools of Indianapolis until he had attained to the age of ten years, and he then visited the City of Berlin, Germany, where he remained for three and one-half years and where, during the major portion of this period, he attended the "Beliner Gymnasium". He early manifested a distinc- tive musical taste and talent and when but eight years of age began the study of the violin, which he continued in the Berlin Conservatory during the period of his sojourn in Germany.

Upon his return from Germany to Indianap- olis, Dr. Martin entered the Shortridge High School, in which he was graduated as a mem- ber of the class 'of 1894, after which he pur- sued higher academic branches in Butler Col- lege, at Irvington, now a part of the City of Indianapolis, for one year, at the expiration of which he was matriculated in the Indiana Medical College, in which he completed the prescribed course and was graduated as a mem- her of the class of 1898, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He did not attain his legal majority until the month following his graduation. During the three years of his undergraduate work in this college he was as- sistant to the Professor of Chemistry, and this position he retained for one year after his graduation, being at the same time resident physician at the Indianapolis City Dispensary.

In the summer of 1899, the doctor went to New York City, for the purpose of doing such post-graduate work as would more amply for- tify him for the practice of his profession. He there served as substitute interne in Roose- velt Hospital and was identified with the Van- derbilt Clinic until the autumn of the same year, when he entered the senior class of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the med- ical department of historic old Columbia Uni- versity. in which he was graduated in 1900 and from which he received his supplemental de- gree of Doctor of Medicine. He then assumed the position of house surgeon of the German Hospital. New York City, which incumbency he retained until April, 1903, and during the

ensuing three months he served the regular term at the Sloane Maternity Hospital, as resident physician. He then left the national metropolis and returned to his home in In- dianapolis, where, in October, 1903, he became superintendent of the Indianapolis City Hos- pital. He continued in tenure of this office until January, 1906, when he retired to devote his attention to the private practice of his pro- fession, in which his success has been of the most unequivocal order. As already stated, he now gives his entire time and attention to the practice of surgery, in which his services are in much requisition and in connection with which he has gained a specially high reputa- tion.

Dr. Martin is identified with the American Medical Association, the Indiana State Med- ical Society, and the Indianapolis Medical So- ciety, and in connection with his professional association in New York City he holds member- ship in the Sloane Maternity Hospital Alumni Association and the German Hospital Alumni Association. He is affiliated with the Phi Rho Sigma college fraternity. He holds the chair of associate surgeon at the Indiana University School of Medicine; is chief of surgical clinic and consulting surgeon of City and Bobbs' Dispensary ; attending surgeon of Indianapolis City Hospital, and a member of the City Board of Health and Charities. Dr. Martin was married January 6, 1904, to Miss Edna Mathilde Kuhn, daughter of August M. and Emma D. Kuhn.

RT. REV. JOSEPH MARSHALL FRANCIS, D. D., Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Indianapolis, was born at Eaglesmere, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of April 1862, and is a son of James B. and Charlotte A. (Marshall) Francis. After receiving an academic education in Philadel- phia, Bishop Francis pursued courses at Racine College and Oxford University, and obtained his degree of D. D. from Neshotah (Wiscon- sin) College in 1899 and Hobart College in 1901.

Becoming a deacon in the Protestant Epis- copal Church in 1884, two years later Dr. Fran- cis was ordained to the priesthood, his pastor- ates of this period being at Milwaukee and Greenfield, Wisconsin. In 1886 he was appointed canon of the cathedral at the former city, and in 1887 assumed the rectorship at Whitewater, in 1888 going as a missionary to Tokyo and not long afterward being appointed priest in charge of the cathedral at the Japanese capital, as well as professor in the Trinity Divinity School there. It was while thus engaged that he married Miss Stevens, of Milwaukee, Wis- consin. Returning from Japan in 1897, Bishop Francis was appointed rector of St. Paul's

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Church, Evansville, in January, 1898, and in June, of the following year, was elected Bishop of Indiana, his consecration occurring on the. 21st of September.

AUGUSTUS MURPHY. For a quarter of a century no citizen of Indianapolis was more familiar with its manifold business and civic interests than the late Augustus Murphy, who for that protracted period was in the active management of the compilation and publica- tion of the Indianapolis city directory, being the local manager of the business of the great directory publishing house of R. L. Polk & Company. He was a man of great loyalty as a citizen and business man, and his genial and kindly nature drew to. him the most inviolable friendships. His life was marked by the high- est principles of integrity and honor and he lived and labored to goodly ends until he at last was called upon to answer the inexorable summons of death, having passed away, at his home in Indianapolis, on Friday, September 26, 1902, secure in the high esteem of all with whom he had come in contact in the various relations of a long and signally useful career.

Augustus Murphy was born at Fulton, New York, on the 6th of September, 1842, and was a son of Rev. Daniel and Honora (O'Connor) Murphy, both representatives of stanch old Irish stock. His father was a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church and was a man of fine scholarship and of earnest devotion to his high calling, in which he continued to labor until his death. The subject of this memoir was afforded the advantages of the common schools and of the college at Fulton, New York, after leaving which institution he completed a course in a business college in Detroit, Michigan, where he took up his abode in 1860. There he was employed in the post- office until the inception of the Civil War, when he gave manifestation of his intrinsic loyalty by entering the Union commissary service, continuing to be identified with this depart- ment of the government until the close of the war.

In 1872 Mr. Murphy became associated with the publication of the Michigan Gazeteer, issued by R. L. Polk, of Detroit, and he was interested with Mr. Polk in several such pub- lications. In 1875 he severed his connection with this concern and removed to Chicago, where he entered the newspaper business, also becoming publisher of the Milwaukee city di- rectory, under the title of Murphy & Company. In 1877 he sold that publication and became interested with R. L. Polk in the publication of the Indianapolis city directory, removing with his family to this city in the same year. Thereafter he continued as manager of the

publication of the Indianapolis directory until the close of his life, ever keeping the publica- tion up to the highest standard and in other ways contributing his quota to the upbuilding of the capital city as a metropolitan center. Upon his death he was succeeded by his only son, Charles S., who is still incumbent of the office. He manifested a lively interest in all that concerned the progress and prosperity of his · home city and ever commanded the high regard of its representative business men. His political allegiance was given to the Repub- lican party, he attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity and was identified with its adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He also was prominently identified with various civic organizations that have ma- terially aided in advancing the progress of In- dianapolis. He was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as is also his wife, who survives him and still resides in In- dianapolis.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 2

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 972

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972