Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 25

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 25

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LEONARD M. QUILL. The efficient and popu- lar county clerk of Marion County has been a resident of Indianapolis since his boyhood days and here he has risen to his present re- sponsible position through the well directed efforts and personal integrity which gave him so strong a hold upon popular confidence and esteem as to bring about his election to the office of which he is incumbent.

Mr. Quill was born in West Manchester, Preble County, Ohio, on the 15th of December, 1868, and is a son of Thomas F. and Adaline (Banta) Quill, whose marriage was solemnized in Preble County. Thomas F. Quill is a native of County Kerry, Ireland, where he was born in the year 1846, and in 1856, when he was a lad of ten years, his parents, Thomas and Ellen (Laughlin) Quill, immigrated to America, making the State of Ohio their des- tination and establishing their home in Preble County, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Thomas F. Quill was reared to maturity in that county, where he received a common-school education and where he fol- lowed the vocation of traveling salesman after his marriage to Miss Adaline Banta, who was born in that county in 1848. They are now residents of Indianapolis, where they have maintained their home since 1877. Upon com- ing to this city Thomas F. Quill engaged in the nursery business and he is still actively

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

identified with business affairs. He has been a zealous worker in the cause of the Republican party and served one term as assessor of Cen- ter Township, Marion County, the township in which the City of Indianapolis is located. He has ever commanded unqualified esteem in the community which has represented his home for more than thirty years and is a man whose career has been marked by inflexible in- tegrity of purpose. Both he and his wife are communicants of the Catholic Church. Of their children two are living and the subject of this review is the elder; John J. holds a clerical position in the offices of the national Inter-state Commerce Commission, in Wash- ington, D. C.

In the capital city of Indiana Leonard M. Quill was reared to maturity, and his early educational discipline was secured in the parochial and public schools. After complet- ing the curriculum of the latter he took an effective course in the Indianapolis Business College, and after leaving this institution he was employed for two years in the Buffalo shoe store, then a well known retail establishment of. Indianapolis. During the four years' re- gime of his father in the office of township as- sessor of Center Township, Mr. Quill was em- 'ployed in the assessor's office, and after leav- ing the same he assumed a clerical position in the offices of the Indianapolis Gas Company, with whose interests he was identified for a period of twelve years, within which he was promoted to a position of responsibility as an executive. He resigned his position with the gas company to assume that of chief deputy in the office of the county clerk, William E. Davis, and he served in this capacity until his election to the office of county clerk, as can- didate on the Republican ticket, in November, 1906. He assumed the duties of the office on the 1st of January, 1907, and his term will expire January 1, 1911. He has given a most capable and satisfactory administration and has handled the multitudinous details of the important office with marked discrimination, having in many ways improved the system and facilitated the work of the office. He has been a zealous worker in the ranks of the Re- publican party, to which his allegiance is of the most unqualified order. He and his wife are communicants of the Catholic Church and he is identified with the Young Men's Insti- tute, the Knights of Columbus and the Benev- olent and Protective Order of Elks.

On the 20th of July, 1892, Mr. Quill was united in marriage to Miss Nora C. Golden, who was born and reared in Indianapolis and who is a daughter of Dennis and Anna Golden,

of this city. The children of this union are Thomas E., William P. and Anna Patricia.

JACKSON LANDERS. A man of sterling character and one who left a definite impress upon the civic and business annals of his na- tive state was the late Jackson Landers, who died in the City of Chicago, on the 17th of February, 1908, after a career of signal in- tegrity and usefulness. His was a strong and noble individuality, marked by sincerity and by an intrinsic bonesty that manifested itself in his every thought, word and deed. His name and personality are held in grateful memory by all who knew him and had appre- ciation of his worthy life and generous at- tributes of character.

At Landersdale, Morgan County, Indiana, a place named in honor of the sterling pioneer family of which he was a representative, Jackson Landers was born on the 14th of August, 1843, and, as already noted, his death occurred in the City of Chicago, whither he had gone for medical treatment. He was a son of William and Delila (Stone) Landers, both of whom continued their residence in Morgan County until their death. William Landers was born in the State of Virginia, in 1788, and was a son of Jonathan Landers, who was a native of England and of Scotch- Irish lineage. Jonathan Landers figures as the founder of the family in America, whither he came when twenty-one years of age. He settled in the Old Dominion and was one of the valiant patriots sent forth by Virginia to battle for the cause of independence in the War of the Revolution. His marriage was solemnized in Virginia, where he continued to reside until 1798, when he removed with his family to Kentucky, from which state he came to Indiana, becoming one of the pioneer set- tlers of Morgan County, where he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. At the time of the laying out of Indianapolis, the commissioners stopped at the home of William Landers. He was a man of wealth and in- fluence in the county, where he became the owner of a large amount of land and re- claimed a productive farm. This farm of one thousand acres is still owned by members of his family. He was active in public af- fairs of a local order, was a man of superior intellectual force and ever held a secure place in the esteem of the community to whose de- velopment he contributed in liberal and gen- erous measure. His children were William, James, John and Lucy. William Landers was ten years of age at the time of the family removal from the Old Dominion state to Kentucky, where he was reared to maturity and where he received such educational ad-

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vantages as were afforded in the common schools of the period. : In 1820 he came to In- diana, in company with his father and other members of the family, and he was thirty- two years of age at the time. He became one of the prominent agriculturists of Morgan County, served in various local offices of pub- lic trust and well upheld the honors and pres- tige of the name which he bore. His life was guided and governed by the highest princi- ples and his influence was potent in connec- tion with the civic and material progress of the county of which he was a pioneer. Hc was twice married, having first wed Miss Eva Stone, a daughter of Nimrod Stone, who was a native of Virginia and a loyal soldier in the Continental line in the War of the Revolu- tion. After the death of his first wife he was united in marriage to her sister Delila, who survived him by a number of years.

Jackson Landers, the immediate subject of this memoir, was reared to manhood on the homestead farm of his father, in Morgan County, and there he learned the lessons of thrift and industry which served him well in the later years of his prolific and successful life. He was fully appreciative of such edu- cational advantages as were accorded him in the common schools of his native county and the discipline thus received was rounded out and made symmetrical by self-application and by the active and varied experiences of a most successful career as one of the world's noble army of workers. As a young man he removed from Morgan County to Marion County, in which the capital city is located, and he became the owner of a large and val- uable farm in Centre Township-a property upon which he made the best of improve- ments and in possession of which-he contin- ued for many years. He continued to be actively interested in the great basic industry of agriculture throughout his entire career, and at the time of his death was the owner of a large and finely improved farm in Mor- gan County, a part of the same being the place upon which his father located upon coming to Indiana in the early pioneer epoch.

As a stanch and well fortified advocate of the principles and policies of the Democratic party, Mr. Landers early assumed measur- able leadership in the councils of his party in Marion County, and such was the character of the man and such his partisan loyalty that he became marked as a. most eligible candi- date for official preferment. In 1876 he was elected to the responsible office of treasurer of Marion County, in which position he served two years, refusing to become a can- didate for re-election at the expiration of his

original term. The respect and esteem in which he was held in the county was signifi- cantly shown in his election to the office of county treasurer, for he overcame a large and normal Republican majority. His adminis- tration of the fiscal affairs of the county am- ply justified the popular trust reposed in him and so definitely indicated by the suffrages of the voters of the county. At the time of his election he removed from his farm to the City of Indianapolis, where he ever afterward maintained his home and where his popular- ity was of the most unequivocal order. Upon his retirement from office Mr. Landers became manager of the Landers pork-packing plant and business, of which he had been one of the founders, and he retained this incumbency for several years. In 1886 he became one of the interested principals in the organization of the United States Encaustic Tile Works, of which corporation he was elected treasurer .. He gave much of his time to the promotion of the interests of this concern, now one of the most extensive and important of its kind in the Union, and he retained the executive office mentioned until 1906, when, upon the death of John J, Cooper, he succeeded to the presidency of the company, a position of which he continued in tenure until the time of his death.

As a business man Mr. Landers was far- sighted, enterprising and progressive, and his administrative ability was of a high order. He had naught of ostentation and gave to every man a fair and just estimate, having no respect for the mere fictitious phases of pomp and power. Plain, direct and forceful in his conversation, he was sometimes considered brusque or abrupt, but there was naught of austerity in his nature and his heart was es- sentially attuned to sympathy, tolerance and generous impulses. As may well be under- stood, he was a man of positive character, and there was nothing vacillating in his attitude in either the business or social relations of life. In all relations he did right as it was given him to see the right, and he was ever ready to extend co-operation in the promotion of measures for the general welfare of the community and to lend aid to those afflicted or distressed "in mind, body or estate". He was a consistent member of the Third Chris- tian Church of Indianapolis and exemplified his faith in his daily life. In the Masonic fraternity he was raised to the sublime de- gree of Master Mason, and until his death he maintained active affiliation with Lodge No. 319, Free and Accepted Masons, of Indian- apolis. In his death Indianapolis lost one of its most honored citizens, and his life itself

Chase Bank

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

constitutes the best monument to his mem- ory.

As a young man Mr. Landers was united in marriage to Miss Georgiana Knox, who like- wise was born in Morgan County, Indiana, where her parents were pioneer settlers, and she was summoned to the life eternal in 1876, having been a devout member of the Chris- tian Church. Of the children of this mar- riage the following brief record is made : John B., who became a successful stock raiser in Kansas, is now deceased; Lillie is the wife of Winfield Miller, connected with Connecti- cut Mutual Insurance Company ; William F., who is treasurer of the United States En- caustic Tile Works, of Indianapolis, is indi- vidually mentioned on other pages of this work; and Arthur died at the age of twenty- two years. In 1878 Mr. Landers was united in marriage to Mrs. Laura (Hayes) Laycock, who survives him. Their daughter, Eudora, now deceased, was the wife of William Har- bison, of Indianapolis.

WILLIAM F. LANDERS. Numbered among the essentially representative business men of the younger generation in the capital city, William F. Landers is the only living son of the late Jackson and Georgiana (Knox) Lan- ders, and as on other pages of this work is entered a memorial tribute to his honored father it is not requisite that further review of the family history be incorporated in the present article. Suffice it to say that he is, in both the agnatic and maternal lines, a scion of honored pioneer stock in Indiana.

William F. Landers was born in the village of Landersdale, Morgan County, Indiana, on the 25th of January, 1868, and the place of his nativity was named in honor of the fam- ily of which he is a representative. He was reared principally in the City of Indianapolis and was afforded the advantages of the ex- cellent public schools of the capital city, in- cluding the high school. At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Landers assumed a po- sition as salesman in the dry goods establish- ment of Murphy. Hibben & Company, of In- dianapolis, but he held this position only a short interval, as in 1889 he became superin- tendent of the United States Encaustic Tile Works, one of the extensive and important industrial concerns of Indianapolis and one in which his father was a heavy stockholder, having been president of the corporation at the time of his death. The subject of this review gave most efficient service in the execu- tive office of superintendent and upon the death of his father, in 1908, he became treas- urer of the company, of which position he continued incumbent and in which he is giv-

ing an able administration as one of the prin- cipal executive officers of the company. He is one of the progressive and loyal business men of the city and has shown a lively inter- est in all that has tended to conserve the de- velopment of "Greater Indianapolis". Like his father, he is a stanch supporter of the cause of the Democratic party, but he has never had any ambition for the honors or emoluments of public office. He is identified with various social and civic organizations of representative character and enjoys marked personal popularity in the city which has been his home from his childhood days.

On the 3rd of August, 1898, Mr. Landers was united in marriage to Miss Camilla Fisk, of Toledo, Ohio, and they have one child, William Fisk Landers.

CHARLES E. DARK. In the various rela- tions of life the late Charles E. Dark, of In- dianapolis, gave to the world the best of an essentially strong, noble and loyal nature; his life was guided and governed by the high- est principles of integrity and honor; he was humanity's friend and his nature was attun- ed to tolerance and sympathy. In connection with the practical affairs of life he accom- plished much and he left a record of value as one of the world's workers. He was long and prominently identified with various lines of the insurance business, in connection with which he gained a wide reputation, and though he encountered reverses, through no negligence or fault of his own, his name ever stood synonymous of absolute probity and honesty.

Charles E. Dark was born in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 10th of April, 1849, and at Battle Creek, Mich., where the last six weeks of his life were spent, on the 13th of August, 1908, he died. He was a son of John and Nancy Ann (Brooks) Dark, the former of whom was born in Wiltshire, Eng- land, and the latter in Ohio, of Irish and English lineage; she is still living, main- taining her home in Indianapolis and being eighty-three years of age at the time of this writing. John Dark was reared and edu- cated in Cincinnati and became one of the leading contractors and builders of the city, where he constructed many of the old build- ings that are still standing along the river front. In 1856 he went to Louisiana to su- perintend the construction of a building for which he had contract, and he was there as- sassinated for expressing too freely his views in regard to slavery, of whose abolishment he was an ardent and uncompromising advocate. He had previously been warned that such would be his fate if he again visited the com-

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munity, and his action in going to the south again showed that he not only had great physical courage, but also that of his convic- tions.

When Charles E. Dark was eight years of age he came with his widowed mother to Iu- dianapolis, where he attended the common schools until he assumed, at an immature age, the practical responsibilities of life. When eleven years of age he initiated his business career by obtaining, with the exception of one other boy, the exclusive right to sell news- papers to the soldiers and prisoners in his- toric Camp Morton, which was here main- tained during the progress of the Civil War. He persistently pursued this line of work about one year, at the expiration of which he was given a position in the accounting de- partment of the Indianapolis Journal. Soon, however, he was tendered a clerkship in the banking house of Fletcher & Sharpe, and af- ter a few years' experience as a bookkeeper for this institution he was given, at the age of sixteen years, the position of teller. From' this time until 1883, he was employed by vari- ous banking houses in the capital city and after the failure of the Indiana Banking Company, of which he was assistant cashier, he engaged in the fire-insurance business. For a number of years prior to the financial crisis of 1893 he had conducted the largest fire- insurance agency in the state.

While thus engaged in the insurance busi- ness, Mr. Dark promoted the organization of the Indiana League of Fire Underwriters, of which he was the first president. This asso- ciation has done more to harmonize fire-in- surance interests in the state than has been accomplished through all other steps ever taken in the interests of that line of business, because it has brought together into one as- sociation what were non-union or non-board companies, thus, almost immediately, putting an end to unscrupulous competition, which was forcing premium rates to an inadequate figure.

In 1895 Mr. Dark found the small fortune which he had succeeded in accumulating had been entirely swept away, through exigencies over which he had no control, and in addi- tion to this he was left with a heavy indebt- cdness, judged from a legitimately compara- tive standpoint. Instead of availing himself of bankruptcy, Mr. Dark showed his intrinsic integrity and honor by signifying his un- alterable determination to pay one hundred cents on every dollar of his indebtedness, and through his earnest efforts he practically accomplished this landable result when an untimely death terminated his labors. From

1895 until 1899 he was engaged in the mort- gage-loan business, in the meanwhile devot- ing considerable attention to life insurance and making a careful and discriminating study of actuarial science, in which he had become much interested several years previ- ously.

In 1898, realizing the fact that there was not in existence in the state of Indiana a regular legal-reserve life-insurance company, he took up the work of procuring the passage by the state legislature of a life-insurance law which would conserve the interests of stockholders and policyholders in any com- pany which might be incorporated under its provisions. Associated with him in this work was Wilbur S. Wynn, founder and now vice- president and secretary of the State Life In- surance Company, of Indianapolis. After a very hard and bitter contest, engendered by the antagonism of a lobby representing in- terests of eastern companies, the desired law was passed, and it is known as the compul- sory legal-reserve deposit law. This law was a district innovation, in that it was the first enacted by any state of the Union with the requirement of a deposit of securities cov- ering liabilities to policyholders, prescribing a definite basis of valuation, and also a defin- ite standard of investment for the funds of life-insurance companies. This law has been repeatedly adopted, in part, by other states of the Union. In April, 1899, immediately after the passage of the above mentioned law, Mr. Dark effected the organization of the American Central Life Insurance Company, of Indianapolis, of which he was vice-presi- dent and general manager from its inception until the time of his death.

In 1906, recognizing the lack of harmony among the younger life-insurance companies of the United States, and keenly realizing the necessity for their combining for the protec- tion of their own legitimate interests, Mr. Dark promoted the organization of the Amer- ican Life Convention, an organization com- posed of about fifty of the leading western and southern life-insurance companies. He was the first president of this association, which has accomplished more than any other agency to bring about harmony and uniform- ity of legislation in connection with the life- insurance business.

At the time of his death Mr. Dark was rec- ognized as the foremost life-insurance under- writer in the state of Indiana. Throughout his mature life he gave an unqualified alle- giance to the Republican party and, although entirely without political aspirations, he was known as a hard worker in the ranks of his

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party whenever he was called upon for service in its behalf. He was a consistent and appreciative member of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, in which he was affiliated with Mystic Tie Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. As a very small boy, of his own voli- tion, he associated himself with the Presby- terian Church, and thereafter he took an un- usually active part in the various depart- ments of church work, in connection with which he was prominently concerned in the erection of the edifices of three of the lead- ing Presbyterian churches of Indianapolis- the Second, the Memorial and the Tabernacle Presbyterian churches, of which last men- tioned he was a member at the time when he was summoned to the life eternal. Among his friends and business associates he was known as a fervent and consistent Christian- one who applied the teachings of the faith to his business and social life. He was known for his gracious and genial personality, his lively human sympathy, his untiring energy, and, considering his resources, his extreme generosity in connection with churches and charitable organizations. He kept the needle of life true to the pole-star of hope and guid- ed his course with a full sense of his respon- sibilities and with the strength of conscious rectitude. His name merits a place on the roll of the worthy and representative citizens of the beautiful city in which practically his entire life was passed and to which his loy- alty was ever inviolable.

On the 27th of February, 1872, was sol- emnized the marriage of Mr. Dark, at Can- ton, Ohio, to Miss Margaret Rebecca Hur- ford, who was born and reared in the old Buckeye state and who is a daughter of Alexander and Hannah ( Humbert) Hurford. She survives her honored husband, as do also their two sons-Wilbur W., who was born March 14, 1873, and Edward H., who was born on the 9th of August, 1875.

Wilbur W. Dark gained his early educa- tional discipline in the public schools of his native city, and was graduated in the Short- ridge high school, then known as Indianap- olis high school, in February, 1891, after which he was for two years, 1892-3, a student in Cornell University, at Ithaca, New York. From 1893 until 1897 he was engaged as special agent and adjuster for fire-insurance companies, and from the latter year until 1904, he gave his attention to the mortgage- loan, real-estate, and life and fire insurance business. In 1904 he became assistant sec- retary of the American Central Life Insur- ance Company, of which he was elected sec- retary in 1905, retaining this office until 1908,

when, after the death of his honored father, he succeeded the latter as vice-president of the company, of which position he is now in- cumbent. His brother, Edward H. Dark, is assistant secretary of the same company, and both are numbered among the representative business men of the younger generation in their native city.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 25

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