Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 41

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 41

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

Though he was reared in the faith of the Democratic party and early had the trne Jeffersonian principles instilled in his mind, when the Republican party was organized and stood exponent of the principles of in- dissoluble federal union, it was but natural that he should transfer his allegiance to its cause, and he cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln, while he was serving as a soldier at the front. In the support of the cause of the "grand old party" he has since exercised his franchise and given his influ- ence. General Richardson became a member of the Presbyterian Church when .but sixteen years of age, and withont bigotry or in- tolerance of spirit he has since striven to order his life according to the teachings of the divine Master. He is an appreciative member of the time-honored Masonic fra- ternity, in which he has attained to the four- teenth degree of the Ancient Accepted Scot- tish Rite. He is identified with both the lodge and uniform rank of the Knights of Pythias, and in the latter department he has been prominent and influential and has re- ceived marked distinction. He was made colonel commanding of the First Regiment, Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias, Indiana Brigade, and for eight years he was colonel on the staff of Major-General James R. Car- nahan, commanding the uniform rank of this order throughout the world. He is a valued member of George H. Thomas Post No. 17, Grand Army of the Republic, and of Camp No. 80, Union Veteran Legion, besides which he holds membership in the Indiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Indianapolis Home for Aged and Friendless Women.

At Greenwood, Jackson County, Missouri, on the 13th of September, 1867, was solem- nized the marriage of General Richardson to Miss Estelle Carpenter, who was born and reared in Delaware County, Ohio, whence her parents removed to Missouri in 1866. Her parents likewise were natives of Delaware County, where her grandparents on both sides were very early settlers, having removed thither from the State of New York. Mrs. Richardson was a woman of most gracious personality and won to herself the affection- ate regard of all who came within the sphere. of her influence. Her devotion to her family was of the deepest order and she was. ever ready to aid those in any way afflicted in mind, body or estate, having been a devout and consistent member of the Presbyterian Church, in whose faith she passed to the life eternal on the 11th of April. 1900. She

was a lineal descendant of William Carpen- ter, who came from England to America in 1638 and settled at Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Representatives of the Carpenter family were participants in the colonial Indian wars and also in the War of the Revolution. General and Mrs. Richardson became the parents of six children, namely : Grace, Edna, Estelle, Nathan Henry, Benjamin Austin, Jr., and Sherrill Edson. Grace and Estelle died in infancy and Edna passed away at the age of fifteen years. Nathan H. is a resident of Indianapolis; Benjamin A., Jr., also resides there, as does Sherrill E. On the 12th of November, 1902, in Springfield, Ohio. Gen- eral Richardson was united in marriage to Miss Susan Ballard, who was born at Athens, that state, on the 23rd of November, 1856, and who was nine years of age at the time of the family removal to Springfield, where she was reared to maturity. Mrs. Richardson is a graduate of Western College for women, at Oxford, Ohio, in which she was a member of the class of 1876. She was for many years president of the alumni association of her alma mater, and at the present time she is secretary of the board of trustees of that in- stitution. She is also a member of the board of managers of the Indianapolis Home for Aged and Friendless Women, and she is prominently identified with religious and charitable work in the capital city, where, like her husband, she is a devoted member of the Memorial Presbyterian Church. She is a descendant of William Ballard, who came to America as a member of Governor Win- throp's colony and who settled at Framing- ham, Massachusetts.

REV. FRANCIS H. GAVISK. An honored and distinguished representative of the priesthood of the Catholic Church in the capital city of Indiana is Father Francis H. Gavisk, who is. in pastoral charge of the flourishing and im- portant parish of St. John's Church, and who is held in high esteem in Indianapolis, both as a loyal citizen and able and devoted churchman.

Father Gavisk finds a due measure of satis- faction in reverting to the fine old Hoosier commonwealth as the place of his nativity. He was born in the City of Evansville, In- diana. on the 6th of April, 1856, and is a son of Michael and Mary (Tierney) Gavisk, na- tives of Ireland, both parents being now de- ceased. Father Gavisk was reared to matur- ity in his native city, where he gained his preliminary educational discipline in the parochial schools, after which he entered Saint Meinrad's Abbey, in Spencer County, Indiana, in which admirably ordered church

Jillian Allen Good

SAMUEL FLETCHER WOOD

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

institution he completed both his classical and ecclesiastical courses. On the 30th of May, 1885, in the abbey church, at St. Mein- rad, he was ordained to the priesthood, at the hands of Rt. Rev. F. S. Chatard, the present bishop of Indianapolis. On the 20th of the following month he was assigned to service as assistant priest of St. John's Church, In- dianapolis, and he has since been continuously identified with the work of this parish, to whose spiritual and temporal upbuilding he has contributed with all of zeal and conse- crated devotion. He has been the pastoral head of his parish since 1890, and under his administration the church has had a large and substantial growth and has expanded its usefulness in every direction. Father Gavisk is a man of high intellectual attainments, is an able and pleasing public speaker, drawing upon a wealth of sacred and secular learning and having a mature judgment in the placing of true valuations upon men and affairs, as he well understands the well-springs of hu- man thought and action and is kindly and tolerant in his association with his fellow men, both in sacredotal and social relations. Generous and public-spirited as a citizen, of gracious and charming personality, he has gained and retained a secure hold upon the confidence and esteem of the community in which he has so long labored for the uplift- ing. of his fellow men, and he has the affec- tionate regard of the people of the parish over which he is placed, a faithful shepherd, as well as a loyal guide, counselor and friend. He is a member of the official board of the Indianapolis Charity Organization Society, is also a member of the Board of State Chari- ties, being appointed by Governor Hanna in 1908, and is a member of the executive com- mittee of Indiana, of the American Red Cross. Father Gavisk takes a deep interest in all benevolent and charitable work and he holds membership in the Commercial Club of whose high civic ideals he is deeply appre- ciative, is on the Citizens' Library Commit- tee of the Public Library, and is also chan- cellor of the Diocese of Indianapolis.

SAMUEL FLETCHER WOOD. The early law- yers of Indiana, and, indeed, nearly all of those who practiced law before the last dec- ade, were largely concerned professionally with constitutional, real estate, and criminal law. In later years these branches have been overshadowed in popular and professional in- terest by general commercial and corporation law. The foremost of the early men were less in touch with active business affairs and had a tendency toward philosophy, literature, history and oratory; the leading lawyers of

today may be learned in belles-lettres and theoretical political government, but, to be successful, they must be practical students also of the complexities of modern business which almost daily modify the written laws.

A lawyer of the first class mentioned was Samuel Fletcher Wood, son of William Wood, a physician and farmer of English descent, who lived in Fountain County, In- diana. The grandfather in early times moved from the colonial estate of the Wood family, near Parkersburg, Virginia, to Delaware, whence William Wood came to Indiana, after living temporarily in Ohio. Samuel Fletcher Wood was educated in Illinois . Wesleyan and Asbury (now DePauw) Universities, receiv- ing academic and honorary degrees from the latter institution. In Illinois Wesleyan, he was a student in the same class with Adlai E. Stevenson, vice-president under Cleveland, who in a letter 'to Mr. Wood's son said, "Your father was an exceedingly agreeable and courteous young man and was very pop- ular with his classmates." After college Mr. Wood entered the law office of David Davis (afterward United States Senator and, by the appointment of Abraham Lincoln, judge of the United States supreme court), in Bloom- ington, Illinois, but later settled for practice in Covington, Indiana. The Covington bar in earlier years was unusually able, and in- cluded a number of men who attained dis- tinction, among them Edward Hannegan and Daniel W. Voorhees, who became United States senators, and Lew Wallace, famous as a soldier, diplomat and author, as well as several men of college education who never attained more than local reputation, but who were as able in their profession as those who rose to fame. A fellow lawyer wrote of Mr. Wood: "In no case in which I have known him to take part was he ever overmatched in either legal acumen or forensic power. In all cases in which he was retained, assisting counsel accorded him the leadership. The legal mind of this trained student and accom- plished scholar never missed its mark. He was able at once to strike the correct theory of a case, and its every detail was soon with- in the grasp of his great and incisive mind. His logic was cogent, his langnage was chaste and elegant, and his manner was captivating. He never violated the rules of legal ethics in order to make the side he represented more popular either with a judge or with a jury. He was an orator of grace and power, and was eloquent and convincing in the highest degree. As a trial lawyer and as counsel he was regarded hy his fellows in practice as the most dangerous adversary they could

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

have. His services as a political speaker in behalf of the Republican party had a most telling effect, as he had great ability in en- listing the sympathy of his hearers, and never abnsed those who differed from him political- ly. He was urged to become a candidate for Congress, but he refused, and later his friends offered to secure him a seat in the United States senate or an appointment as minister to one of the best diplomatie posts, either of which would have been easy for him to at- tain, but he had no desire for public service. In personal address he had a passport to so- cial success that was enviable. Medium in height, of good parts, and with handsome head and figure, he was furthermore dis- tinguished by patrician elegance of manner and an ingratiating courtesy. Judge David Davis regarded him as the most brilliant young lawyer he had ever known, and cor- responded frequently with him on matters of constitutional law."

During his middle life, Mr. Wood found much enjoyment in reading Latin and Greek authors, Horace and Catullus and the Greek poets and philosophers principally, in the original. He was scholarly, but did not parade his learning in his addresses. While the direction of his talent and power as an ora- tor was in the line of the normal and health- ful towards the beautiful and ideal, he never so transcended the real and the practical that his thought seemed fanciful or his presenta- tion forced. He realized, whether consciously or not, that art is only nature that has passed through the selective and harmonizing proc- esses of the human mind-that the orator, like other artists, must be a connoisseur of life. His judgment and taste in matter and expression were of the very best. He never depended on a minor key for an effect, and though he had a keen sense for human incon- gruities and a delightful humor, he usually reserved their display for his private inter- course with friends. An admirable regard for the privacy and rights of others won him in return the highest respect and affection and the reputation for being the soul of honor itself. His first manner in speech before the publie was casual, but direct, and from this he proceeded to the most eloquent heights. He expressed his feelings with a freedom of spirit and a force unstunted by academic rules, while showing the discipline and pro- portion acquired by academic training. He rarely told a story, did not appear in the light of an entertainer, and shunned the com- mon methods of the professional platform orator. Nevertheless, his addresses were full of color, variety and interest, and were very

entertaining. When he spoke, one felt one had heard something vital and beautiful. The audience was filled with the contageous dy- namic for righting wrongs, for elevating man- kind civilly, socially, and, individually, and for living on a higher and brighter plane. A certain Hellenic grandeur and inspiration seemed to pervade the atmosphere he created. The purposeful comments of both the unedu- cated and the cultured people of his audiences best showed the range and intensity of his effect. His taste was unimpeachable, he dressed always in the best style, and alto- gether was a man of magnetic and easily tri- umphant personality.

When Mr. Wood died, May 27, 1899, sev- eral distinguished men paid him tributes. Lew Wallace said: "He was a man of un- usual learning and charm of manner, a most delightful companion. He was modest al- most to a fault-his modesty was wholly dis- proportionate to his ability and accomplislı- ments. His discretion and reserve were such as should characterize a man of national af- fairs, which he was eminently fitted to be. Culture, common sense, and democracy were characteristic of him. He was like the Vir- ginia gentleman of ante bellum days and the genial high-caste Englishman of today." Benjamin Harrison said: "He was a man of distinguished bearing and polished manners. He had a broad grasp of legal principles, as well as a specific hold on minor points of law. He was apt and forceful in expression and was free from what Disraeli character- ized as 'the forensic habit of diverting at- tention from the question to the man who propounds it'. I recall my acquaintance with him with great pleasure." Thomas H. Nel- son once said: "Wood is a marvel of correct and forceful utterance. No man I have known used the English language with more uniform correctness: He should have done great things; he should have been a maker of high history." Another distinguished cit- izen of Indiana said of Fletcher Wood: "I have had a liking for oratory, just as some men have a liking for painting, sculpture, or music. I have heard Lincoln, Sumner, Phil- ips, Henry Grady, Douglas, Roscoe Conkling, Senator Ingalls, Thomas Bayard, Robert J. Ingersoll, Joseph H. Choate, Tom Corwin, General Gordon, Voorhees and the earlier group of Indiana orators, Beveridge and the later group, and many other Americans, as well as several English orators of distinction, among them Gladstone, and Lord Roseberry on one occasion-effective orators of all kinds and classes-and I never sat under the spell of any man who satisfied my intellect and emo-

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tions and appealed to my aesthetic sense as applied to oratory to the same extent as did Fletcher Wood. I could not imagine a man of more charm on the platform-he did not apologize and he did not explain too much; he did not by will power or any expression of physical or mental dominance subdne his hearers, but informed and persuaded them with a beautifully modulated voice, and im- pressed them with a personality that was equally noteworthy for liquid freedom or steel reserve when the occasion required one or the other. While he was forcefully dra- matic at times, he always maintained a prop- er reserve. At will he lifted his auditors into the regions of the ideal. He was appar- ently unconscious of his form of expression, notwithstanding its perfection, and he was free from tricks and artificialities, so that to hear him was a pure delight. His andience surrendered to him voluntarily."

James Bingham, the present attorney gen- eral of Indiana, who grew to manhood in Fountain County, says of Mr. Wood : "As a young man he was handsome and fine looking. He had a fineness of physical make-up that at once distinguished him from other men. As compared to Senator Voorhees and that class of orators, he had not only their eloquence, but he had a power of logical reasoning that made him invincible. He was considered one of the strongest advocates in Indiana, and was a close student of the classics of the law. He enjoyed a large and lucrative law practice in Fountain and adjoining counties, and had the absolute confidence of all who knew him. Not since the earlier days of Edward Hanne- gan did any lawyer of eastern Indiana have such a hold on the admiration and good will of the community as had Fletcher Wood. He was admired by all men, and when it was known that he was to speak in court or at any public meeting, people flocked to hear him from the country, towns and cities of the community." In amusements, Mr. Wood enjoyed fishing, riding and driving, and would go far to see a good horse race. The photograph from which the accompanying en- graving is made was taken after he had re- tired from the practice.

Samuel Fletcher Wood was the father of William Allen Wood of Indianapolis, who is descended on his mother's side from the Al- len family, recorded in William Henry Egle's Pennsylvania Genealogies under the title " Allen of Hanover". The mother, whose maiden name was Mary Catharine Allen, was a daughter of John Allen, a well-known furniture manufacturer of Covington, Indi- ana. The predominant blood in this line is

Scotch, Irish and English. One of the an- cestors came to America with William Penn and assisted in the founding of Philadelphia. William Allen Wood is a lawyer of the kind last mentioned in the first paragraph of this sketch. He is a student of affairs, and has the best library of economic, commercial and financial works in Indianapolis, outside the state and city collections. Mr. Wood makes a specialty of the law of corporations, lec- tures on the organization and management of corporations in an Indianapolis law school, and is the author of a practical book on cor- porations which is used in the schools of com- merce and finance in several universities and in the departments of engineering in several others. When Mr. Wood graduated from the Covington (Indiana) high school he had the highest standing in his class and thereby won the honor scholarship in Indiana University. At the university his major courses were economics, English and biological science. On leaving the university he was invited by Dr. Eigenmann, head of the department of bi- ology, to join him in the histological study of the blind fishes. but, on account of the time it would require before the study could be completed, he did not enter into the work. Dr. Eigemann secured an international repu- tation among biologists through this study. Mr. Wood was ,also offered positions in three universities as teacher of economics. After two years of rest and travel he came to In- dianapolis, and did newspaper and magazine work, sold stocks and bonds, and then en- tered on the practice of law. Besides being counsel for several well-known corporations, he was credit connsel for one of the national banks of the city, and has been the organ- izing connsel and attorney for several cor- porations owned and managed by leading bus- iness men of Indiana, as well as the legal rep- resentative in Indiana of several foreign corporations. Mr. Wood has not neglected the social and benevolent sides of life, but, besides his social and political club member- ships, has taken an active interest in the In- diana Society of Sons of the Revolution, of which he. has been president: in the Sons of the American Revolution, of which he has been honorary vice-president, and in the Boys' Club, of which he is a director. He edited The Book of the Sons of the Revo- lution in Indiana in 1903. Both Woods, father and son, belonged to the college fra- ternity of Phi Gamma Delta, and the son was editor of the national magazine of the fra- ternity for two years. Allen Wood is a stu- dent of literature, and has occasionally con- tributed to periodicals, among them The

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Century Magazine, Life, and the edi- torial department of The Outlook. He is- especially interested in the drama, and, as an avocation, enjoys the study of dramatic form and content and pictorial and sculptural art. In 1907 Governor Hanly appointed Mr. Wood on the Wallace statue commission, created by the Indiana legislature to secure a statue of General Lew Wallace and to place it in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol at Washington. In sports, Mr. Wood has been an enthusiastic rider and hunter. He is a remarkably· sure field shot and in trap shooting he has scored one hundred and ninety-three out of a possi- ble two hundred. In rifle shooting he has scored well up with expert army and profes- sional marksmen. Another diversion of Mr. Wood is the game of whist. In a recent an- nual state whist tournament he and his part- ner won the state challenge bronze trophy in pair play.

DR. GEORGE A. SIGLER has been a member of the medical profession in Indianapolis for many years, and is one of the city's best known physicians. He was born in Rich- mondale, Ross County, Ohio, February 24, 1846, and after a good training in the high school of Peru, Indiana, he entered the Cin- cinnati Medical College and graduated with the class of 1872. Three years later he was a graduate of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of the City of New York, and then entering actively upon the work of his chosen profession he located at Liberty, Union County, Indiana, and practiced there for twenty-four years, from 1872 until 1896. Coming in the latter year to Indianapolis he has since been engaged in the general prac- tice of medicine and surgery here. During fifteen years of his residence at Liberty he was a surgeon for the Chicago, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad Company. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Society, of the Indiana State Medical Society and of the Maennerchor, the Indiana Democratic Club and Warren Lodge No. 15, F. & A. M. at Connersville, this state.

Dr. Sigler is a son of Joseph and Sarah R. (Cunningham) Sigler and is a great-grand- son on the maternal side of William Cunning- ham, a prominent Irish agitator who on ac- count of political matters was secreted on board a vessel and brought to this country, his home being afterward in York, Pennsyl- vania. George Sigler, the doctor's paternal grandfather, was born December 11, 1828, and died in 1880 at · York, Pennsylvania, while his wife, Mary A. Sigler, died May 24, 1865, aged eighty five years. Both were of Scotch parentage. Joseph S. Sigler, the

doctor's father, was born in Virginia, and was a carpenter and contractor. He died at the age of eighty-three years, and his wife passed away in 1857. Of the five children which were born of their marriage union the three now living are : George A., William A., living in Liberty, Indiana, and Mary, the wife of a Mr. Marquiss.

Dr. Sigler married Frances C. Stagg, April 6, 1873. She was born in Union County, In- diana, and is a daughter of William and Phoebe (Little) Stagg, both of whom were born in the City of New York, and she was the seventh of their nine children. Mr. Stagg came to Indiana in early manhood, and spent the remainder of his life as a merchant at Brownsville. Dr. Sigler is a member of the Democratic party and of the Presbyterian Church.

EDSON T. WOOD has acquired a wide repu- tation as a real estate operator, and has laid out several of the additions of Indianapolis. He was born in this city March 9, 1868, to the marriage union of Daniel L. and Martha (Nutting) Wood. Daniel L. Wood, born in the State of New York in 1830, died in 1903, and his widow yet resides at their old home- stead, 817 N. Pennsylvania street, which they bought in 1866. Of the six children born to their marriage union five are now living, and Edson T. was the fifth born. Daniel L. Wood, the father, was a graduate of the Michigan University of Ann Arbor, and was engaged in a mercantile business in that city until coming to Indianapolis in 1866. He was here engaged in the life insurance business until within ten years of his death, after which he lived retired. He was a mem- ber of the Second Presbyterian Church, and in politics was first a Whig and later a Re- publican.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 41

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