Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 45

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 45


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John Downing came down the Ohio River and numbered himself among the pioneers in the vicinity of the present thriving little City of Frankfort, Scott County, Indiana, to which state he came at the time when the government canal was in process of construc- tion. When the subject of this review was a child of about four years the father re- moved with his family to Jackson County, and settled at Burgess Ferry, on the Musca- ticat River, where he established a country store and where he also improved a farm. Money found but little circulation in the pio- neer communities, and thus the trade of the little cross-roads store was carried on princi- pally through general bartering, in which the merchant took coon skins and other pelts, as well as farm produce, in exchange for his commodities. John Downing was a man of sterling character and of strong mentality, and he became one of the influential citizens


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of his section, where he served for many years as justice of the peace and where he was prominent in the directing of public opinion and action. In politics he was orig- inally an old-line Whig and later he became a stanch Democrat of the Jacksonian type. He and his wife were zealous members of the Baptist Church and were prominent in its work in their section in the pioneer days. They continued to maintain their home in Jackson County until they were summoned to eternal rest, in the fulness of years and se- cure in the high regard of all who knew them, and of their children, Colonel Michael A., named in honor of his paternal grandfa- ther, is now the only one living.


- As already stated, Colonel Downing was about four years of age at the time of. the family removal from his native county to Burgess Ferry, Franklin County, and his hoyhood and early youth found sufficient di- versity through his assisting in the work of the home farm and his father's store and in attending the primitive pioneer schools of the locality. He was not, however, to be denied further and higher scholastic privileges, as his father, a man of intelligence and appre- ciative intellectuality. fully realized the value of educational discipline and gave to the son the best opportunities available. Thus we find Michael A. Downing continuing his stud- ies in the Blue River Seminary, which was then known as one of the best academie in- stitutions in the state, and after completing the currienlum of this school he attended old Asbury University, at Greencastle, now known as DePauw University, and later be- came a student in Franklin College, at Franklin, this state.


After leaving college Colonel Downing was associated in the work and management of his father's farm until 1856, when he as- snmed the position of commercial agent for the firm of A. Downing & Company, owners of the Richland Iron Works, in Greene Coun- ty. He retained this incumbency about two years, at the expiration of which, in the au- tumn of 1857, he took up his residence in the City of Louisville, Kentucky, where he engaged in the wholesale and retail grocery business. He became one of the influential citizens and business men of the Kentucky metropolis. In 1861 he was elected a mnem- 'ber of the board of aldermen, and his total period of serviec in this capacity covered many years. In 1867 he was elected to rep- resent his county in the state legislature, and the effective service he rendered in this office met with such unqualified popular approval that he was continued in the same, hy snc-


cessive re-elections, during the major por- tion of the time until he removed to Indian- apolis. For years he was owner and man- ager of the Louisville stock yards, and his ac- tivities in public and business life made him one-of the well known and valued citizens of the fine old Bluegrass state.


With Mr. Scott he was identified with the pushing forward of an enterprise that has been of inestimable value to Indianapolis, and concerning his efforts in this connec- tion the following appreciative statements ap- peared in a sketch of his career published in the Indianapolis Sentinel of September 7, 1904: "In 1876, after his advent in this city, -Colonel Downing took up, with characteristic vigor, the Indianapolis Belt Railroad project where it had been laid down by promoters who lacked the essential executive stamina and 'nerve', and it was largely through his personal agency that the splendid improve- ment was secured, to the intense relief of central city street traffic. Colonel Downing served as general manager of the Belt dur- ing the construction of the road and until it finally passed into the control of the Union Railway Company, in 1882. He is still a heavy stockholder in the Belt road."


In 1884 Colonel Downing became asso- ciated with Messrs. Cobb, DePauw, Claypool and other Indianapolis capitalists in the pur- chase of the St. Louis & Florisant Narrow Gange Railway, at St. Louis, Missouri, and under the reorganization the title was changed to the St. Louis Cable & Western Railway. Colonel Downing secured the franchise for the first cable system of street railway in St. Louis. He held the office of president of the St. Louis Cable & Western Railway Company until 1887, when the prop- erty and franchise were sold to a Boston syndicate. Colonel Downing, in 1887, allied himself with other capitalists in the promot- ing and building of the . first cable street railroad line in the city of Denver, the same being established on Fifteenth street. The line was .controlled by the Tramway Cable Railroad Company, and Colonel Downing was general manager of the system until 1890, since which time his more important business and capitalistic interests have been centered in Indianapolis, where he has long wielded potent influence in public affairs and indus- trial enterprise.


In 1884 Governor Gray conferred upon Colonel Downing the appointment of metro- politan police commissioner for Indianapolis, and he retained this office for a period of one year. On the 16th of October, 1895, Col- onel Downing was appointed president of


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the board of public works of Indianapolis, receiving this important preferment at the hands of Thomas Taggart, who was then mayor of the city. He gave most able and timely service in this position and retained the same for two terms under Mayor Tag- gart, and one term under the regime of Mayor Holtzman. He then resigned the of- fice, of which he had remained incumbent for six and one-half consecutive years, and in 1906 he was appointed member of the board of park commissioners, by Mayor Charles A. Bookwalter. He was reappointed at the ex- piration of his first term and served until Sep- tember 1, 1908, when he resigned, much to the regret of the mayor and the people of the city, as his interposition here, as in other offices of trust, had been marked by loyal public spirit and distinctive administrative power, which he applied with much fore- sight and wisdom in furthering the interests of the municipal department with which he was thus identified. For more than thirty years he has contributed in large measure to the highest business life of the community and has stood for the most exalted citizenship in all the term implies.


In his political allegiance Colonel Down- ing is found arrayed as a stanch supporter of the generic principles and policies of the Democratic party, and lie and his wife are members of the Baptist Church. He has been identified with the Masonic fraternity for more than half a century, having become an entered apprentice and been duly raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in the lodge at Bloomfield, Indiana, in 1856. His ancient-craft affiliation is now with Pres- ton Lodge, No. 281, Free and Accepted Ma- sons, at Louisville, Kentucky, of which he is a life member. The colonel was at one time a valued member of the Indianapolis Board of Trade and the Commercial Club, and is identified with various other civic and fra- ternal organizations of representative order. It is scarcely necessary to say that he is a man of sturdy individuality and of well forti- fied opinions. He has seen much of men and affairs and is essentially liberal and broad- minded, the while he has ordered his course with a due sense of his stewardship, has achieved success through worthy means, and has not been denied the most ample meas- ure of popular confidence and esteem. He has been a valuable citizen and is today one of the venerable, honored and vital "captains of industry" in the fair capital city of his native state. The beautiful family home is located at 424 North Meridian street and there is dispensed a generous and gracious


hospitality to a wide circle of appreciative and valued friends.


In October, 1855, was solemnized the mar- riage of Colonel Downing to Miss Susan Lee Duncan, who was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, and who is a daughter of John- son Duncan, who continued a resident of that state until his death, having been a farmer by vocation and a citizen of prominence and influence in his community. Colonel and Mrs. Downing have two children-Emma, who is the wife of Charles H. Wood, of In- dianapolis, and Sallie D., the wife of Will- iam H. Coleman, also of Indianapolis.


HAMLIN L. SHUTE. As a contractor in the line of imitation-stone work Mr. Shute has gained prestige as one of the enterprising and representative business men of the capi- tal city of Indiana, where he has maintained his home since 1888, when he removed hither from Detroit, Michigan, where he had been engaged in the same line of enterprise.


The beautiful old "City of the Straits", Detroit, Michigan, figures as the place of Mr. Shute's nativity, as he was there ushered into the world on the 29th of November, 1859. He is a son of Richard and Jane D. (Rockhey) Shute, both of whom were born and reared in Devonshire, England, where their marriage was solemnized and whence they emigrated to the United States in the year 1849. They took up their residence in Detroit soon after their arrival in America, and there the father engaged in business as a contractor, in which line he made a special- ty of artificial or imitation stone work. He was successful in his business and continued operations in Detroit until his death, on the 9th of August, 1877, at the age of fifty years. After his demise his widow removed to Bay City, Michigan, where she passed the residue of her life and where her death occurred in 1902, at which time she was seventy-seven years of age. Of the children, John, Will- iam Alfred, and Walter Gordon are deceased, and those living are Caroline M., Hamlin L., Bessie R., and Harvey R.


Hamlin L. Shute is indebted to the excel- lent public schools of Detroit for his early educational discipline, which was supplement- ed by a course of study in the Jones Classi- cal School, of that city. He was eighteen years of age at the time of the death of his father, to whose business he succeeded, and in Detroit he continued to be actively en- gaged in contracting for all kinds of archi- tectural work in the utilization of imitation stone until 1888, when, as already noted in this sketch, he removed to Indianapolis. Here he has continued contracting in the


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same field of enterprise and through ef- fective service and progressive methods he has built up a large and substantial business. He has devised many improvements in the utilization of imitation-stone work and in In- dianapolis are many effective evidences of his ability and discrimination, while he has ever maintained an impeachable reputation as a thorough, reliable and honorable business man. He is one of the leading contractors of the city in all kinds of smooth and rock-faced imitation stone work, in all colors, and his business is constantly expanding in scope and importance. He is loyal and public-spirited in connection with civic affairs and in poli- tics is aligned as a supporter of the cause of the Republican party, though he has never been an aspirant for official preferment.


On the 17th of July, 1901, Mr. Shute was united in marriage to Miss Olive Hill, who was born and reared in Evansville, Indiana. They have no children.


HARRY C. PARKER, M. D. In this historic compilation Dr. Parker merits distinctive recognition as one of the representative mem- bers of his profession in Indianapolis, and as one who has attained to high reputation and marked success in his special field of practice, that of the treatment of the diseases of the eye.


Dr. Parker is a native of the city of Du- buque, Iowa, where he was born on the 21st of January, 1877, and he is a son of Alonzo J. and Margaret Frances (Caldwell) Parker, the former of whom was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the latter in the state of Ohio. They still reside in Dubuque, where the father has maintained his home and been en- gaged in business for more than fifty years, having long been numbered among the lead- ing manufacturers and influential citizens of that city, to whose development and progress he has materially contributed.


Dr. Parker gained his preliminary educa- tional training in the public schools of his native city, after which he was for one year a student in the Pennsylvania Military Acad- emy at Chester, in Chester County. After leaving this institution he entered the aca- demic or literary department of Harvard University, where he completed a two years' course, and he was then matriculated in the medical department of the same historic in- stitution, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1901 and from which he received his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. After his gradnation he was en- gaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Boston for a period of five years. within which he was for some time connected


in a professional way with the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary in a direct way, as well as a member of the out-patients' medical staff. For two years he was resident ophthalmic surgeon for this institution, and during nearly the entire period of his pro- fessional work in Boston he was ophthalmic instructor in Tufts Medical College of that city.


Upon leaving the Massachusetts metropolis Dr. Parker came to Indianapolis, where he took up his residence in March, 1907, and where he has since built up a very secure and representative practice and where he has de- voted his attention almost exclusively to the medical and surgical treatment of diseases of the eye, in which connection he is a virtual authority, as he has given the closest study and investigation to his specialty under the most auspicious of conditions. He is junior ophthalmic surgeon to the Indianapolis City Hospital, and as a member of the faculty of the Indianapolis University School of Medi- eine he holds the chair of clinical professor of ophthalmology, in which his services are proving especially effective. The doctor is a member of the American Medical Associa- tion, the American Academy of Ophthalmol- ogy and Oto-Laryngology, the Indiana State Medical Society and the Indianapolis Eye, Ear and Throat Society. In politics he is independent, and he is identified with a num- ber of civic and fraternal organizations of prominent order. During the period of his residence in the Indiana capital he has gained unqualified personal and professional popu- larity, and his success in his chosen field of endeavor has been on a parity with his un- questioned ability.


On the 15th of August, 1905, Dr. Parker was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Parker, of Chicago, a daughter of Horace B. and Emma F. (Munger) Parker, the father a prosperous business man of that city. Though bearing the same name the two families are not consanguine. Dr. and Mrs. Parker have a daughter, Margaret Louise. born August 11, 1906.


THEODORE STEMPFEL. A citizen who is well entitled to consideration in this publica- tion as one of the essentially representative German-Americans of Indianapolis and who is here known as a loyal and progressive citi- zen and sterling business man, is Theodore Stempfel, who is now assistant cashier of the American National Bank, one of the stanch financial institutions of the capital city.


Mr. Stempfel was born in the city of Ulm, kingdom of Wurtemburg. Germany, on the 20th of September, 1863. He was donbly


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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.


orphaned when but seven years of age, but was enabled to avail himself of the excellent advantages afforded him in the gymnasium, a school corresponding measurably to the American high school. His intention as a youth was to fit himself for the legal profes- sion, but the Probate Court which had charge of the disposition of the funds bequeathed to him by his parents decided that the same were not adequate to enable him to complete a collegiate course. Under these circum- stances the young student finally laid aside his Ovid, Livius, Homer and Molière, and prepared to enter a business career. He .se- cured a clerical position in a leading banking house in his native city, where he continued to be employed for two years, at the expira- tion of which, in compliance with the orders of the king of Wurtemburg, he entered the German army, as a volunteer for one year. At the expiration of this term of military service he was tendered the position of as- sistant cashier in the banking institution with which he had previously been connected. For some reason which he is not to this day able satisfactorily to explain even to him- self, Mr. Stempfel at this juncture in his affairs, conceived the idea, or, as he himself has expressed it, "had the inspiration" of coming to America, for the purpose of fa- miliarizing himself with business methods and policies in the United States. He was honor- ably discharged from the army in March, 1883, when nineteen years of age, having like all other loyal soldiers and patriots of Germany, been greatly disappointed that the much dreamed of and discussed war with Russia had not been precipitated, and in June of that year the young soldier set forth for America, making Indianapolis his destination. He was led to come to the Indiana capital principally by reason of the fact that here resided William Haueisen, to whom he was distantly related. Soon after his arrival Mr. Stempfel found employment in the whole- sale department of the pioneer business house of Charles Mayer & Company, in which . es- tablishment so many of the German citizens of Indianapolis gained their. initial business experience. Later Mr. Stempfel became book- keeper for the H. Lieber Company, with which concern he was connected for seven years. He then associated himself with oth- ers in the organization of the Western Chem- ical Company, manufacturers of medicinal tar products, but three times within one year was the factory of the company destroyed by fire, the result being that Mr. Stempfel lost all the money he had accumulated by eight


years of earnest and indefatigable application after coming to Indianapolis.


In 1893 Mr. Stempfel assumed a clerical position in the trust department of the In- diana Trust Company, with the affairs of which corporation he continued to be iden- tified until 1900, when, upon the organiza- tion of the American National Bank, he was tendered the office of assistant cashier of the new institution, an office of which he has since continued the efficient and popular in- cumbent. He has never regretted the decision that led him to establish his home in Indian- apolis, and the city has none who is more loyal to its interests. He is independent in politics. He says that his aim is to vote for the best man irrespective of party affiliations. He is identified with various social and civic organizations of representative order, and is one of the well known and distinctively pop- ular representatives of the German-Ameri- can element that has played so important a part in the upbuilding of "Greater Indian- apolis". Mr. Stempfel has distinctive lit- erary ability and it is a matter of gratifica- tion to the editors and publishers of this his- tory that the chapter devoted to the Ger- man-Americans of Indianapolis is largely translated from a book written by him some years ago.


The wife of Mr. Stempfel is a daughter of Herman Lieber, who was an honored and in- fluential citizen of Indianapolis.


HON. MARTIN M. HUGG, one of the ablest lawyers of the Indianapolis bar, and one of the best known Republicans of his county and state, is a native of Indianapolis, born March 17, 1858: His father was born in Baden, Germany, joined the German revolu- tion of 1848, and was wounded in that strug- gle. Upon the defeat of the revolutionary forces he fled to America.


Mr. Hugg, of this sketch, was reared and educated in the public schools of Indianap- olis, and learned the trade of a bookbinder, being employed by the old Sentinel Com- pany. He took a course of law lectures in the University of Michigan, from which he was graduated in 1879. For a time he then read law in the office of McMaster & Boicc, and from 1882 to 1885 was employed as a clerk in the law office of John M. Judah. Next Mr. Hugg entered regular practice and was appointed by Prosecuting Attorney W. N. Harding as deputy prosecutor in charge of police court cases. He served with ability in this capacity until November, 1886, and in the following month formed a partnership with Joseph B. Kealing, which became one of the strongest law firms in Marion County.


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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.


From the beginning of his professional ca- reer, Mr. Hugg has been an active party in politics, as an ardent and unswerving Re- publican. In 1896, he was nominated as his party's candidate for state senator, and was elected, his record being such as to win for him a high reputation for energy, honesty and ability. He was county attorney of Mar- ion County from January 1, 1901, to Feb- ruary 1, 1905. In 1904 he was again nom- inated and elected as one of the senators from Marion County, and served during the sessions of the general assembly in 1905 and 1907. In other capacities Mr. Hugg has filled several positions of honor and trust, earning the entire approval of the public and meeting the most sanguine expectations of his many friends. He holds membership in the Marion Club and is a Scottish Rite and Knight Templar Mason.


JAMES W. NOEL. It has been the privilege of James W. Noel to attain high prestige as one of the representative members of the bar of the Indiana capital, a bar notable at the present time, as in the past, for the profes- sional brilliancy and marked precedence of its general personnel, and he has shown abil- ities of the most solid and definite order, gaining success by close application and the effective employment of his talents, and ever observing those unwritten ethics through whose influence the dignity and honor of his profession are maintained. In a character- istic paraphrase Senator Chauncey M. Depew once made the following statement: "Some men were born great; some achieve great- ness; and some are born in Ohio." Under the final element of this category Mr. Noel can claim classification, with all that the rel- ative distinction involves, and his genealogy in both the agnatic and maternal lines is of distinctively patrician order, besides betoken- ing long and prominent identification with the annals of American history.


Mr. Noel was born at Melmore, Seneea County, Ohio, on the 24th of November. 1867, and is a son of William P. and Caro- line (Graves) Noel, both of whom are now living at Star City, Indiana. The Noel fam- ily is traced back in England to the eleventh century, they having migrated with the great Norman, William the Conqueror, and Dooms- day Book makes definite record of the line. Soon after the gallant cavalier English set- tlement was made in Virginia, the original progenitors of the Noel family in America took up their abode in that colony, and the name has been one of no little prominence in the public life and affairs of the nation in the various succeeding generations. Loftus


Noel, great-grandfather of him whose name initiates this sketch, removed from the Old Dominion to Lexington, Kentucky, becoming one of the honored pioneers of that state. His son Albert Ncel, grandfather of James W., moved from Kentucky to Ohio and be- came one of the early settlers of Alexandria, that state. He married a descendant of the De Vilbiss family, of French Huguenot stock, representatives of which came to America from Alsace-Lorraine in the seventeenth cen- tury, and one of the children of this marriage was William P. Noel, who was born in Ohio, where he was reared and educated and where was solemnized his marriage to Miss Caroline Graves, who is of stanch Puritan stock. William P. Noel served with the Forty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry from the first call for soldiers to the end of the Civil War. He removed from Ohio to Indiana in the year 1880 and settled in Pulaski County, where he purchased a farm, near Star City, and became numbered among the progressive agriculturists of that section of the state where he has ever held a high place in pop- ular confidence and esteem. He is a Repub- lican in his political proclivities and both he and his wife hold membership in the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. Of their eight chil- dren James W. was the first in order of birth, and of the number three sons and four daughters are now living.




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