Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 52

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 52

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Willet B. Blair gained his early educa- tional discipline in the public schools and was nine years of age at the time of his mother's death. As a youth he assisted in the work

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of the home farm and finally he began in- dependent operations in the buying and ship- ping of cattle and hogs, devoting his atten- tion to this line of enterprise during the win- ter season, and having also followed the trade of cobbler for some time, working at the same principally in the evenings.

At the age of twenty-seven years Mr. Blair came to Indianapolis and engaged in the buy- ing and selling of horses. He opened a retail sales stable on Capitol avenue, and in 1889 he formed a partnership with William W. Baker, with whom he has since continued to be intimately associated in his business enter- prises. In 1893 the firm of Blair & Baker established headquarters at the Union Stock Yards, where their extensive operations have since been centered. As already stated, the Blair-Baker Horse Company succeeded to control of the firm's business in 1900, incor- poration having been made to expand the commercial facilities of the enterprise. Mr. Blair is a substantial, thoroughgoing business man and his marked success represents the direct result of his own efforts. His course has been so ordered that he has never lacked popular confidence and esteem and his deal- ings have at all times been honorable and straightforward, so that the concern with which he is identified well merits its high reputation. The Indianapolis Sales Company forms an adjunct to the Blair-Baker Horse Company and its operations are in the hand- ling of high class speed horses. In politics Mr. Blair accords a stalwart allegiance to the cause of the Republican party, but he has never cared to enter the domain of so-called practical politics. He is a member of the Columbia, Commercial, Marion and Wood- ruff Clubs.

On the 28th of October, 1884, Mr. Blair was united in marriage to Miss Ida P. Pray, who was born in Morgan County, Indiana, a daughter of Joseph and ---- - (Johnson) Pray, both of whom were born and reared in Indiana, where they passed their entire lives, Mr. Pray having been a tanner by trade and having conducted a tannery at Mooresville, this state, for many years. He was a Repub- lican in politics and both he and his wife were birthright members of the Society of Friends, in which they were zealous workers. Of their eleven children six are living, Mrs. Blair being the youngest child. Mr. and Mrs. Blair have one son, William B., who was reared and educated in Indianapolis and who is now a buyer for the Blair-Baker Horse Company, being one of the representative young business men of the city.

WILLIAM H. SPAHR. One of the stanch rep- resentatives of business activities of the capi- tal city of Indiana is William H. Spahr, who is senior member of the firm of Wm. H. Spahr & Son, engaged in the handling of mortgage loans and real estate, with head- quarters in the Talbott building, at the cor- ner of Pennsylvania and Market streets.

William H. Spahr claims the fine Old Do- minion commonwealth as the place of his nativity, as he was born in the historic city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the 24th of July, 1842. He is a son of Jacob and Maria Spahr, the former of whom was born in Switzerland, on the 8th of February, 1808, and the latter in Lancaster City, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1810. In 1845, when the subject of this sketch was about three years of age, his parents came from Pennsylvania to Indiana and located at Millersville, Marion County. The future metropolis of the state was then a mere vil- lage, and Jacob Spahr was offered the quar- ter square on which the magnificent Claypool hotel in Indianapolis now stands, for the sum of four hundred dollars. He brought with him five thousand dollars in cash, an amount that was considered a comfortable fortune in those days. This he had accumulated through his operations as a contractor in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Upon coming to Indiana he purchased a flour mill and distillery in Mil- lersville, and he conducted the same until 1847, when he rebuilt the mill, greatly in- creasing its capacity, and thereafter he oper- ated the mill and distillery until the early '50s, when he disposed of the property and business, owing largely to his wife's opposi- tion to the manufacture of whiskey.

Jacob Spahr was ahout eight years of age at the time of his parents' immigration from Switzerland to America, in 1816. They landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in that state his parents passed the remainder of their lives. The mother of the subject of this sketch was born at Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania, in May, 1810. and her maiden name was Miller. She was of Swiss French and Swiss German descent. Jacob Spahr was killed by a train on the Lake Erie & Western Railroad, on his farm, near Millersville, In- diana, on the 22d of September, 1872, and his wife, who attained to the venerable age of eighty-seven years, passed the closing days of her life in Indianapolis. The father was an appreciative student of the bible and was well fortified in his views in regard to polit- ical and religious matters. His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for more than fifty years. They became the

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parents of three children, of whom William H. is now the only one surviving. George W., one of the sons, became a representative member of the bar of Indianapolis, dying on the 15th of January, 1909, while delivering an address in a local auditorium. He was a graduate of Butler College (which was known at the time as the Northwestern Christian University ), and also of the Indiana Law School. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. John M., another son, died about thirty-five years ago, at the age of forty years; he had been a successful farmer and stock dealer.

It has been the privilege of William H. Spahr to witness the development and up- building of Indianapolis from a mere village to a metropolitan city, and he accounts hin- self fortunate to have been so closely identi- fied with its business and civic interests dur- ing the period of progress and growth. Prac- tically his entire life has been passed within the limits of Marion County, and the capital city can claim no citizen who is more thor- oughly appreciative and loyal. His early educational training was secured in the primi- tive log schoolhouse of the pioneer days, and he early began to assist his father in the oper- ation of the mill and also in the work of the home farm, his father having secured a large tract of land near Millersville at the time when he purchased the mill previously mentioned. In the late '50s he was enabled to enter the Northwestern Christian Univer- sity (now Butler College) at Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, where he was a stu- dent about one year, after which he con- tinued his studies in Franklin College, at Franklin, Indiana. In 1861 he was gradu- ated in Purdy's Commercial College, in In- dianapolis. In the spring of 1862 Mr. Spahr began buying horses and mules for the United States army, and with this line of enterprise he was successfully identified until the close of the war. He then turned his attention to the buying of live stock, which he shipped to the markets in New York, Philadelphia, Balti- more, Pittsburg and Buffalo. With this line of enterprise he was connected for a period of about five years, in the meanwhile main- taining his home and headquarters in Indian- apolis. His next business venture was in con- nection with the operation of a flour mill at 352 W. Washington street, this city, and later he engaged in the loan and real estate busi- ness, in which he has since continued, having both city and farm property and having built up a large and profitable enterprise. In the business he now has as his coadjutor his son Marcus R., and the agency is one of the best

known and most substantial of its kind in the capital city. Mr. Spahr has ever maintained a high reputation as a reliable, straight-for- ward and enterprising business man, and has never been denied the fullest measure of popular confidence. Though he has never been an aspirant for public office, he accords a stanch allegiance to the Democratic party. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the Knights of Honor.

On the 27th of September, 1865, Mr. Spahr was united in marriage to Miss Amelia A. Hare, who was born in Noblesville, this state, and who was a daughter of David and Eliza- beth Millard Hare, both of whom were like- wise born in Indiana, being members of ster- ling pioneer families of the state. Her father was for many years engaged in the dry goods business in Noblesville and was a citizen of prominence and influence. Mrs. Spahr was the mother of eight children, seven of whom are now living. Concerning them the follow- ing brief data are given: Alice M. is the wife of John W. Morrison, Frankfort, In- diana, and they have six children; Nellie is the wife of Stanton Dawson, of Broad Ripple. Indiana ; George M. is a bachelor and lives at Frankfort, Indiana, and Walter Q., married in 1909, resides in Indianapolis; Marcus R., who married Miss Maryette Norton, is asso- ciated with his father in business, as already noted, and is also city salesman for J. C. Perry & Co .; Clara Elizabeth (commonly known as Bessie) and Esther Teresa remain at the paternal home. The family enjoy marked popularity in the social life of the community, and the subject of this sketch is to be considered, at the present time, as one of the sterling pioneer business men of "Greater Indianapolis".

RICHARD OTTO JOHNSON. Among the sons of Indiana who are honoring their native commonwealth through their able and effect- ive services in positions of distinctive trust and responsibility is Richard Otto Johnson, the popular superintendent of the Indiana State School for the Deaf, in Indianapolis, of which office he has been the valued incum- bent for twenty-one years-a fact that offers the best voucher as to the value of his admin- istration as the executive head of this noble institution of the state. He is a scion of honored pioneer families of Indiana, is a member of the bar of the state, but has found outside the work of his profession ample scope for productive endeavor in connection with the splendid institution of which he is superintendent, having gained prestige as one of the foremost and most successful edu- cators of the deaf to be found in America.

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

Mr. Johnson was born at Lewisville, Henry County, Indiana, on the 17th of January, 1858, and is a son of Dr. Thornton A. and Mary (Freeman) Johnson. Dr. Thornton Aurelius Johnson, a cousin of General Mar- maduke Johnson, of Missouri, and a nephew of Edward Johnson, a noted jurist of Vir- ginia, was born at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on the 22nd of February, 1823, and when he was a child his parents removed to Indiana and settled near Greenwood, Johnson Coun- ty, numbering themselves among the pioneers of that section of the state, where the son was reared to manhood. He received the best edu- cational advantages afforded in the schools of the locality and period and supplemented this by higher academic study and by pre- paring himself for the medical profession, in connection with which he became known as ·a successful and able physician and sur- geon. He removed with his family to In- dianapolis in 1862, and here his death oc- curred on the 17th of July, 1865, at which time he was but forty-two years of age. He was twice married, his second wife (1853) be- ing the sister of the first (Emeline), who died in 1851. By the first marriage there were three children, Mary, Luciene and Charles, none of whom is now living; of the two children of the second marriage the subject of this re- view is the elder, and the other, Nellie, is now the wife of Hon. Charles M. Cooper, president of the United States Encaustic Tile Works, of Indianapolis. Mrs. Mary (Freeman) Johnson (born January 7, 1832) still survives her honored husband, and re- sides in Indianapolis, where she is held in affectionate regard by all who have come within the sphere of her gracious influence. Of her the following appreciative statements have been made: "She is a woman of su- perior literary attainments, an occasional writer of verse, and was one of the first to suggest an annual offering in floral decora- tion of soldiers' graves, this suggestion hav- ing been made in a poem published in the Indianapolis Journal in 1868. She is re- ferred to in terms of filial devotion by her son, and he reverts with appreciation to the fact that she has been his adviser as boy and man and that her admonition and loving in- fluence will remain potent as long as mem- ory abides with him."

Lawson William Johnson, paternal grand- father of Richard O. Johnson, was a native of Fairfax County. Virginia, and he married Margaret Anne Winslow Stubblefield, who was born in Frederick County, Virginia. He was of stanch English lineage and the family of which he was a worthy representative was

founded in the fine Old Dominion state in the very early colonial epoch of our national history. His wife was of Scottish ancestry and a member of a family that was estab- lished in Maryland in the eighteenth century, her maternal great-grandfather being Thomas Noble, of near Glasgow, Scotland, who came to this country in 1738, settling in Maryland on the banks of the Potomac opposite the home of Lawrence Washington (Mt. Vernon). Connected with many of the leading families of the Old Dominion, their descendants have filled many places of honor and trust, as statesmen, soldiers, and professional men. Mrs. Margaret Anne Winslow Johnson was a first cousin of James and Noah Noble, the former of whom served as United States senator from Indiana and the latter of whom became governor of this state. She was high- ly educated and at one time conducted a pri- vate school in Indianapolis.

Concerning the maternal ancestry of Rich- ard O. Johnson, the following interesting data are available. He is in the maternal line a grandson of Lewis Crowell Freeman, who was a native of Morristown, New Jersey, and a scion of stanch Puritan stock. He was born on the 13th of April, 1794, and became a man of prominence and influence. He was a direct descendant of Stephen Freeman, who was born near Oxford, England, in 1614. and who emigrated thence to America in 1635, settling in the vicinity of the present city of Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1666, in company with other colonists, he removed to New Jer- sey and founded the town of Newark, on the Passaic River, and there he continued to abide until his death, which occurred in 1675. In that section of New Jersey are to be found today many descendants of this sterling an- cestor. Lewis Crowell Freeman, however, left the ancestral home, serving as a lad at New Orleans in the War of 1812 and settling near Cincinnati, Ohio, after the close of that conflict. He acquired large tracts of land in that locality, and in Cincinnati, on the 25th of April, 1822, was solemnized his mar- riage to Miss Susan Harris, who was born at Trenton, New Jersey, September 28, 1796. She was of English and Irish descent, her father, Joseph Harris, being a younger son of Sir Robert Harris, a native of Belfast, Ireland, and her mother, Jemima (Drake) Harris, of Trenton, New Jersey, was a de- scendant of Sir Francis Drake, and a cousin of Andrew Johnson, who became president of the United States. Soon after his mar- riage Mr. Freeman left Ohio and came to Indiana, settling in the eastern part of the state, where, on Christmas day of the year

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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.

1829, he laid out a town upon his lands in Henry County, on the banks of Flat Rock River, and to this pioneer village was given the name of Lewisville, after his Christian name. He was identified with the building of the old Whitewater canal and of a railroad line between Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio-a line that is now a part of the Penn- sylvania Railroad system. He was a man of vigorous intellectuality, distinctive enterprise and public spirit, and of sterling worth of character, so that he not only wielded much influence in connection with public affairs, but also commanded the unqualified confi- dence and esteem of all with whom he came in contact. ' In politics he was an old-line Whig, and he was known as a stanch advo- cate of popular education, while his home was notable for its gracious and unreserved hos- pitality. The family coat of arms, duly re- corded in the English college of heraldry, has as its motto the words, Liber et Audax. Lewis C. Freeman was a relative of the gen- tle poets, Alice and Phoebe Carey. He died October 3, 1851, his wife having passed away on the 16th of the preceding month.

Richard O. Johnson, the immediate sub- ject of this sketch, was a child of four years at the time of the family removal to Indian- apolis, where he prosecuted his studies in the public schools until he had attained to the age of twelve years, after which he continued his studies for one year in Wittenberg Col- lege, at Springfield, Ohio, and for a similar period in Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana. From 1872 to 1876 he was a cadet in the historic Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington, Virginia, an institution that was founded in 1839 and that has been fa- miliarly designated as the "West Point of the South," as its curriculum and discipline have been maintained at the same relative standard as that of the United States Mili- tary Academy. In the institution mentioned Mr. Johnson was graduated on the 4th of July, 1876, the centennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He had served as a non-commissioned and also as a commissioned officer in the academy and was the youngest member of hia class, having been eighteen years and aix months of age at the time of his graduation, as one of a class of thirty-five.

After his graduation Mr. Johnson passed several months in travel in various sections of the union, and he then returned to Indian-' apolis, where, in the spring of 1877, he be- gan the study of law under the able precep- torship of Hon. Samuel H. Buskirk, who had but recently retired from the bench of the

Supreme Court of the state. Mr. Johnson was admitted to the bar of his native state on his twenty-first birthday, in 1879, after which he devoted himself to the work of his profession, in Indianapolis, for three years. During the ensuing year he was a traveling representative of a leading house engaged in the publication of law books, and at the ex- piration of this period he returned to In- dianapolis, with the intention of resuming the practice of his chosen profession. In 1883, however, he was induced to accept the position of secretary of the Indiana State School for the Deaf, with which institution he has been identified in an executive ca- pacity during the long intervening years and to whose success and prestige he has con- tributed in generous measure through his earnest, faithful and able services. His in- tention had been to retain the office of sec- retary of the school for but one year, but he retained the incumbency until July, 1889, when he was appointed acting superinten- dent. In March of the following year he was formally chosen permanent superintendent for a term expiring September 1, 1891, and he has since been continued in office by suc- cessive re-elections, having thus been con- nected with the institution for more than a quarter of a century. He is the only native of the state of Indiana who has ever held the important position of superintendent of this great school, and he has signally hon- ored the state through his services, which have been such as to emphatically justify his long retention in office.

Concerning Mr. Johnson's labors in connec- tion with educational work and his zealous interest in all that touches the welfare of the institution of which he is the executive head, the following pertinent statements have been given and are well worthy of perpetuation in this article :

"Notwithstanding Mr. Johnson was active in politics for a number of years prior to his appointment as superintendent of the Indi- ana State School for the Deaf, he realized the necessity of a complete divorcement of the state's institutions from politics-particular- ly the benevolent and educational institu- tions of this commonwealth-and he prompt- ly announced as his policy that during his incumbency of the office of superintendent non-partisan management should be main- tained in every way, so far as lay within his power; that no one should be appointed or retained for political reasons; and that ac- tive participation in politics by the employes of the institution would not be tolerated. To this policy he has conscientiously adhered,

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refraining from active participation himself, and he may be accounted one of the pioneers in non-partisan management of Indiana's state institutions. In 1895 Mr. Johnson was elected, and still continues, a member of the executive committee of the Conference of Su- perintendents and Principals of American Schools for the Deaf, which committee has in charge the publication of the American Annals of the Deaf. In 1896 he was elected, and still continues, a member of the board of directors of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, organized, endowed and presided over by Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and which publishes the Associa- tion Review. Mr. Johnson has written and compiled several pamphlets and brochures of a professional nature, including 'An Oral Reference Manual' for the guidance of oral teachers of the deaf; 'The Indiana School Mannal', for teachers in the Indiana School of which he is superintendent; 'Concerning Pupils and Their Life at the Institution', for parents and others; 'Deaf Mutes and Educa- tion', a series of papers originally appearing in the Inland Educator; and various other matters of statistical order. He presented a paper on 'Business Methods in Public Insti- tutions' before the National Conference of Charities, meeting in Indianapolis in 1891, and papers before several state conferences on the 'Education of the Deaf'. He pre- sented papers of a professional nature at gatherings of the profession at Lake George, New York; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Columbus, Ohio. In 1897, at the meeting of the Na- tional Educational Association (Department 16) held in the city of Milwaukee, he was appointed one of a committee of three whose duty it should be to examine and compare courses of study in schools for the deaf throughout the United States and Canada, and then to compile an ideal and standard course. In addition to the above and in later years at conventions and elsewhere, Mr. John- son has presented papers upon 'Kindergar- ten Methods', 'Industrial Training', 'Eduça- tional Evolution' and other subjects of pro- fessional nature. He has also presented pa- pers upon 'Eye and Ear Deficiency', 'Defects of Childhood', 'Status of the Hearing-Mute', cte."

At the time of this writing, at the opening of the year 1910, Mr. Johnson, a widely rec- ognized authority in his chosen field of en- deavor, is president of the Conference of Superintendents and Principals of American Schools for the Deaf and chairman of the

executive committee of this organization. He is a director of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, a member of the executive committee of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, a member of the National Society for Promotion of Industrial Education, a mem- ber of various standing committees of profes- sional associations, and an active member of the National Education Association. His en- thusiasm in his work is of the most unselfish and insistent order and his work has been of momentous benefit both to the state and to those unfortunates who have secured in- struction under the beneficent provisions of the great institution whose affairs have been so admirably administered under his resource- ful and able supervision. For many years he has been insistent that the education of the deaf is clearly a duty, devolving upon the state as a matter of right demanded by the deaf and not given as a charity upon the part of the state. Through his efforts the General Assembly of the state enacted a law in 1907 specifically stating that the state school for the deaf, and that for the blind, should not be considered nor classed as benevolent or charitable institutions, but as educational institutions of the state conduct- ed wholly as such. In 1909 he procured an amendment to the general compulsory educa- tion law of the state whereby the deaf and the blind are now included in its provisions.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 52

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