Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 72

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 72

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On the 15th of May. 1867, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Elliott to Miss Annetta Langsdale, who was born in Indianapolis, on the 9th of October, 1846, and who is a daugh- ter of the late Joshua M. W. Langsdale, who was born in Kentucky and who came to In- dianapolis in the early '30s. He became a

Edmund Oleary

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prominent and influential citizen of Indian- apolis and was for many years extensively engaged in the real estate business. He died in this city in 1891, at the age of seventy- eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Elliott became the parents of three sons and one daughter- George B., Joseph T., Jr., Charles Edgar, and Florence. The only daughter died at the age of three years and nine months, and two sons, George B. and C. Edgar, are asso- ciated with their father in business, as im- plied in previous statements in this article. A brief sketch of the career of George B. Elliott appears on other pages of this volume.

FRANK S. FISHBACK. Incumbent of the of- fice of treasurer of Marion County, Frank S. Fishback is giving an able and conservative administration of the fiscal affairs of his na- tive county, and his official preferment well indicates the confidence and esteem in which he is held in the city and county that have represented his home from the time of his nativity to the present. He is one of the sub- stantial and progressive business men who have implicit confidence in the still more note- worthy advancement of the "Greater Indian- apolis" as a commercial and industrial cen- ter, and he is here proprietor of an exten- sive merchandise brokerage business, con- ducted under the title of The Frank S. Fish- back Co. and proprietor of the Fishback Warehouse Company.

Frank S. Fishback was born in Indianap- olis on the 14th of May, 1866, and is a son of John and Sarah E. (Riddle) Fishback, the former of whom was born in Batavia, Ohio, in 1825, and the latter in Kingston, Ohio, July 27, 1832. The father died in 1884 and his widow now maintains her home in In- dianapolis. Of their five children four are living and the subject of this review is the youngest of the number. John Fishback took up his residence in Indianapolis in 1855 and he became one of the honored and influential citizens and prominent business men of the capital city, which continued to represent his home until the time of his death. Upon com- ing to Indianapolis he established a tannery and conducted the same in connection with a wholesale leather business, to which he gave his attention for a number of years. From 1872 to 1875 he was the owner and publisher of the Indianapolis Sentinel, and he was oth- erwise prominent in connection with business activities and civic affairs in. the city. In polities he was a stanch Democrat, and he was active in connection with the promotion of its interests. His religious faith was that of the Presbyterian Church, of which his widow also has long been a devoted member.

Frank S. Fishback was afforded the ad- vantages of the excellent public schools of Indianapolis, and his initial experience in connection with the practical duties of life was gained through association with the In- dianapolis Times. For two years he held the position of assistant bookkeeper in the office of this paper, which, like the Sentinel, pre- viously mentioned, is now defunct, and at the expiration of this period, in 1887, he engaged in the merchandise brokerage business, with which line of enterprise he has since been ac- tively identified. He began operations upon a modest scale and has built up a large and important enterprise.

Mr. Fishback has been a most zealous worker in the local ranks of the Democratic party and he has served in various offices of public trust. In 1903 he was elected council- man-at-large, being the only one of six coun- cilmanic candidates elected on the Democratic ticket. He served during the administration of Mayor John W. Holtzman and proved a loyal and efficient member of the city council. In 1908 he was. elected county treasurer, re- ceiving a gratifying majority at the polls, and he has given a most able and satisfactory administration of this office, in which his term will expire December 31, 1911. He is a mem- ber of the Indiana Democratic Club, the In- dianapolis Board of Trade and the Commer- cial Club, and is affiliated with Ancient Land- marks Lodge No. 319, Free & Accepted Ma- sons, as well as with Lodge No. 7, Knights of Pythias. Both he and his wife hold mem- bership in the Second Presbyterian Church.

On the 12th of June, 1889, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Fishback to Miss Mary E. Stone, who was born in the City of Wash- ington, D. C., being the eldest of the six chil- dren of Daniel E. and Abbie (Stocker) Stone, the former of whom now resides in Baltimore, Maryland, and the latter is deceased. Of the six children five are living. Mr. Stone was born in Vermont, being a member of a family founded in New England in the colonial epoch of our national history, and he is now president of a company engaged in the manu- facturing of veneers in the City of Baltimore. Mr. and Mrs. Fishback have three children- John S., Frank C. and Martha L.

EDMUND D. CLARK, M. D., has attained to distinctive success and prestige in the exacting profession to which his honored father has given his service for fully half a century, being still engaged in active practice at Economy, Wayne County, Indiana. Dr. Clark has fortified him- self for his chosen vocation through the best of preliminary technical discipline and he is es- sentially one of the representative physicians .

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and surgeons of Indianapolis, where he has been engaged in the general practice of his pro- fession for nearly a decade and a half.

Dr. Clark was born in the village of Economy, Wayne County, Indiana, on the 28th of No- vember, 1869, and is a son of Dr. Jonathan B. and Matilda (Conley) Clark, the former of whom was born in Randolph County, North Carolina, and the latter in Union County, Indiana, the father being a birthright mem- ber of the Society of Friends, whose simple and noble faith and teachings he has well exempli- fied in his earnest and well ordered life. Prior to her marriage, the mother had been raised in the Methodist faith but after marriage adopted the faith of her husband. Dr. Jonathan B. Clark was graduated in New Garden Academy, an historic and ably conducted school un- der the auspices of the Society of Friends, at New Garden, North Carolina, and he later entered the medical department of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, in which he completed the prescribed technical course and from which he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine. For fully fifty years he has been engaged in the practice of his profession at Economy, Indiana, where his ministrations have extended with all of unselfish zeal and earnestness and where he is held in affectionate regard by the entire com- munity. Self-abnegation and deep human sympathy have characterized his career, and he has labored to promote not only the physical but also the moral well-being of those about him. He is seventy-five years of age at the time of this writing, in 1910, and is admirably pre- served in both physical and mental faculties. still finding satisfaction and ample spiritual reward in ministering to those "in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body or estate." He is a member of the Wayne County Medical Society, the Indiana State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is hon- ored as one of the able pioneer physicians and surgeons of the state in which he has main- tained his home for many years. Both he and his wife are zealous in the work of the Society of Friends and in politics he has accorded a stanch allegiance to the Republican party from the time of its organization to the present. The four children-one son and three daughters- are all living. and of the number the one son, Edmund D. of this sketch, was the second in order of birth.

Dr. Edmund D. Clark gained his prelimin- ary educational discipline in the public schools of his native town and supplemented this by one year's course of study in the Ohio Wes- levan University. in the City of Delaware. and a two years' course in Earlham College. Rich- mond. Indiana. He thereafter was matricu-

lated in the celebrated Bellevue Hospital Med- ical College, in New York City, in which in- stitution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1891 and from which he received his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. After his graduation he passed one year in the State of Wyoming, and he then went to the City of Baltimore, Maryland, where he passed two and one-half years in service as. assistant surgeon in the Johns Hopkins hospital. In this position he gained wide, varied and es- pecially valuable clinical experience, and the same gave him excellent reinforcement for splendid service in the independent work of his profession. In 1896 he established his home in Indianapolis, where he has since been engaged in active practice and where he de- votes his attention largely to the surgical branch of his profession, having gained a high reputation for his skill and general efficiency in the handling of difficult and critical sur- gical cases. He is held in high esteem by his professional confreres in the capital city and his popularity in a general way is of the most unequivocal type. He continued a close student of his profession, has prosecuted much orig- inal research and investigation and has been a valuable contributor to medical literature, both standard and periodical. He holds mem- bership in the American Medical Association, the Indiana State Medical Society and the In- dianapolis (or Marion County) Medical So- ciety.

In politics Dr. Clark is found arrayed as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Repub- lican party and his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Friends Church. He is affiliated with Pentalpha Lodge No. 564, Free and Accepted Masons, and in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry he has at- tained to the thirty-second degree, being affil- iated with Indiana Sovereign Consistory, Sub- lime Princes of the Royal Secret. He also holds membership in the adjunct organization, Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Dr. Clark is secretary of the Indiana School of Medicine and is professor of surgery in the same insti- tution. He has been president of the Indian- apolis Board of Health for the past five years. During five years of Thomas Taggart's ad- ministration Dr. Clark acted as secretary for the Board of Health.

On the 1st of June, 1893, Dr. Clark was united in marriage to Miss Harriet Lewis, who was born near the City of Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana, a daughter of the late Will- iam Lewis, a well known and highly honored citizen of that section of the state. Dr. and

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Mrs. Clark have one child, Helen Mary, who is now attending the Tudor Hall.

THEOPHILUS PARVIN, M. D., LL. D. A dis- tinguished representative of the medical profes- sion and one whose name is honored as that of one of the greatest authorities in obstetrical science known in the history of his profession, Dr. Theophilus Parvin left a definite impress upon the annals of the State of Indiana and the City of Indianapolis, so that there is emi- nent propriety in according to him a tribute of respect and honor in this compilation. He was a man of high professional and intellectual attainments, was widely known as an educator in his technical field and was endowed with those sterling attributes of character that ever command to their possessor the most unquali- fied popular confidence and regard.

Dr. Theophilus Parvin, who died in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 29th of January, 1898, was born in the City of Buenos Ayres, Argentine Republic, on the 9th of Jan- uary, 1829. His father, Rev. Theophilus Par- vin, a graduate of the University of Pennsyl- vania and afterward of Princeton Theological Seminary, at Princeton, New Jersey, had gone to South America as a missionary of his church and was a resident of Buenos Ayres at the time of the birth of his son and namesake, the sub- ject of this memoir. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Rodney, was a native of Wil- mington, Delaware, and she died a few days after the birth of her son Theophilus. Mary Rodney was the daughter of Caesar A. Rodney, who was an United States congressman and senator from Delaware. He was attorney-gen- eral under Jefferson and Madison from 1807 to 1811, was commissioner to South America and as such advocated the recognition of the Spanish-American republics and was appointed minister to the Argentine Provinces in 1823. Mr. Rodney was a nephew and namesake of Caesar Rodnev, one of the signers of the Dec- laration of Independence, and was a son of Thomas Rodney, who was a member of the Continental Congress, an officer in the Revolu- tionary War and a judge of the Federal Court for the Territory of Mississippi, before whom Aaron Burr was arraigned when arrested for treason on his way south to accomplish his ambitious designs. Reverend Parvin, the be- reaved husband and father, soon after the death of his wife returned to the United States, where he passed the remainder of his life and where he continued in the work of the min- istry for several years, having been a native of New Jersey and a member of a family founded in America in the colonial epoch of our national history.

After due preliminary training Dr. Parvin Vol. II-23

was matriculated in Lafayette College, in Penn- sylvania, and later entered the State University of Indiana, where he was graduated before he was eighteen years of age. After leaving the latter institution he returned to New Jersey, where he passed three years as a teacher in the celebrated Lawrenceville Academy and at the same time pursued some special studies at Princeton. Dr. Parvin early formulated defi- uite plans that drew him aside from the pedagogic profession and led him into that broader and more exacting vocation in which he was destined to achieve distinctive success and exalted prestige. In 1852 was recorded his graduation in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and he soon afterward became resident physician to the Wills Hospital in l'hiladelphia, an incumbency which he retained about one year, at the ex- piration of which he resigned the position and returned to Indiana. It is believed that this early preference for the west was not alto- gether a professional one, for, within the same year, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Rachel Butler, a daughter of Amos Butler, a prominent citizen of Hanover, Indiana. It may be stated that of the four children of this union two sons and one daughter are now liv- ing, the daughter being Mary Rodney, wife of James P. Baker, of Indianapolis, of whom in- dividual mention is. made on other pages of this work. Dr. Parvin and his wife were zeal- ous members of the Presbyterian Church.

The marked abilities of Dr. Parvin brought to him definite recognition among his profes- sional confreres in Indiana, and it may be noted that nine years after establishing his home in this state he was elected president of the Indiana State Medical Society. In 1864 he accepted the chair of materia medica and therapeutics in the Medical College of Ohio, and a few years later he resigned this position to assume the newly created professorship of the medical and surgical diseases of women. For the next fourteen years he held consecu- tive professorships in the University of Louis- ville, Kentucky, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Indianapolis, and the Medical Col- lege of Indiana, with which the institution previously mentioned had been consolidated. In 1882 he returned to the University of Louis- ville, but one year later he was elected to and accepted the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in the celebrated Jef- ferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, where he remained until his death. He served as obstetrician to the Philadelphia Hospital, as consulting obstetrician to the Preston Retreat, a hospital for women, and in a similar ca- pacity was identified with the Northern Dis-

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pensary, in the City of Philadelphia. He was an honored fellow of the Edinburgh Obstetric Society, of Scotland, and was also identified with numerous other medical and scientific organizations of the highest order.

Although Dr. Parvin early in life began to give special attention to gynecology, his repu- tation as an obstetrician, whether by circum- stances or inclination, attained to such over- shadowing proportions that the profession. at large considered him a specialist par excellence in obstetrics. Today he ranks as having been among the very greatest obstetrical authorities in America, and these are necessarily few. As a lecturer he appears to have been eminently . successful, since a man's success, generally speaking, is dependent more upon what he says and the way he says it than upon what he writes, especially in his own generation. Dr. Parvin's right to popular estimation was not only well but also doubly earned. His per- sonal admirers, though many, were most nu- merous among those whose fortune had led them to reap the fruit of the truths sown in his lectures. He wrote much on obstetrics, but in this line the work that at once placed him in the front rank of his profession was his "Science and Art of Obstetrics". This book appeared in 1886 ; its worth was at once recog- nized. He translated and placed upon the American market the work of the celebrated Winckle of Munich, entitled "Diseases of Women". Among the many honors he received froin his professional brethren was that of being made president of the American Medical Association, the Philadelphia Obstetrical So- ciety and the American Academy of Medicine. He was also one of the founders of the Amer- ican Gynecological Society. It may safely be said that no one of equal eminence had a greater number of devoted and admiring friends, both among those of his own genera- tion and of high standing in the profession and among those of a younger generation.

The personal traits of Dr. Parvin were strik- ing and in some respects rare. His cordial, helpful and sympathetic attitude toward his younger professional brethren, to whom such consideration means much, was of the most sincere and insistent type, but one of the finest attributes of his character was his unselfish- ness and his lofty viewpoint, which made it impossible for him to entertain any spirit of jealousy or envy and enabled him to appreciate the good work of his peers with open-hearted acknowledgment. He was absolutely indiffer- ent regarding money matters and never charged ministers for his services, and to poor people he never presented a bill. Dr. Parvin received from Hanover College the honorary degree of

Doctor of Laws, in recognition of his high professional attainments and noble personality. His best monument is that perpetuated in the gracious results of his earnest and worthy life as one of the world's noble army of productive workers, and in his personality he well exem- plified the truth of the statement that "the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring".

HARRY E. NEGLEY. In his native state and county it has been given to Mr. Negley to at- tain prestige as a representative member of the bar, and he is now engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the City of In- dianapolis. He has been prominent in publie affairs of a local order and is known as a citi- zen of utmost loyalty and civic progressive- ness.

Harry Elliott Negley was born on a farm in Lawrence Township, near the village of Castleton in Marion County, Indiana, on the 31st day of August, 1866, and is the eldest of the nine children born to Captain David D. and Margaret Ann (Hildebrand) Negley ; three of the children died in infancy and three sons and three daughters are now living.

So far as authentic data determine, the genealogy of the Negley family is to be traced to Jacob Negley, who was a native of Switzer- land and who was a zealous follower of the teachings of the Protestant reformer, Zwingli. After the defeat of his party in one of the internal conflicts between the Swiss cantons, over religious differences, this worthy ancestor, who certainly was not lacking in the mental or physical courage of his convictions, fled to Germany and there, as records indicate, his marriage was solemnized in 1734. The Chris- tian name of his wife was Elizabeth, but no record is given as to her family name. In Germany Jacob Negley continued to devote himself to teaching in the new religious move- ment, as a layman and a deacon. In 1739, in company with his wife and their three chil- dren, Alexander, Caspar and Elizabeth, he set sail for America, but stern misfortune faced the little family, as husband and father died before the completion of the long and weary voyage and was buried at sea. His wife and their children continued on their way and the sturdy mother established a home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There the son Alex- ander was reared to maturity and there he learned the trade of blacksmith. After his marriage he removed to Pittsburg, where he established his home in 1778, and where he assisted in the organization of the first German United Evangelical Church, the first formal religious organization formed in that city From him descends the numerous family of

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the name in Pennsylvania and adjoining states, a prominent member of the line having been the late Gen. James S. Negley.

Caspar, the second son, likewise was reared to manhood in the old Keystone state, and he finally immigrated to the wild's of Ohio, which state was then considered, and with consistency, on the very frontier of civilization. He settled in or near the present County of Butler, in that state, and he figures as the progenitor of the various families of the name now scattered over the central and western states. Peter Negley, a grandson of Caspar, pushed farther westward and finally settled in Marion Coun- ty, Indiana, establishing his primitive home on the site of the present little town of Millers- ville in the year 1819, where his log cabin home was still used for a dwelling until about 1905, being probably the oldest structure in actual use for that purpose in the county when it finally gave way to the march of time and a more modern architecture. That town, which was then a stopping place between the settle- ments of upper Fall Creek and lower White River, has a history that antedates that of In- dianapolis, which was not founded until some years later. Peter Negley became a farmer, miller and distiller in this county and was a man of influence in the pioneer community. Of his children the one to whom the subject of this sketch traces his direct lineage was George, who married Elizabeth Ludwig and who was a substantial farmer along Fall Creek where the home farm is now owned and occu- pied by one of his sons, John W. Negley. He was one of the pioneer preachers of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church in this section of In- diana. and was a man who contributed gen- eronsly to the social and material development of Marion County, where both he and his wife continued to reside until their death. They became the parents of twelve children, concern- ing whom record shall here be made of only one, David D., the father of him whose name initiates this article.

David Duncan Negley was born September 22. 1835, on the old homestead farm in Law- rence Township, Marion County, Indiana, and there was reared to maturity under the full tension of the pioneer epoch. Early in life, after the death of his father, he was compelled to assume heavy responsibilities, as he had to aid his mother in the conducting of the home farm and in caring for the younger members of the family. He was but fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death, but prior to that he had been enabled to attend the primitive schools of the locality and period. He continued to devote his attention to the great basic industry of agriculture until there

came the call of higher duty, when the integ- rity of the Union was menaced by armed re- bellion. In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the war, he and his two brothers, Peter L. and John W., left the home farm in charge of their mother and the only remaining brother, George W., and went forth to battle for the cause of the Union. David D. Negley first enlisted in the Eleventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, com- manded by Col. Lew Wallace. He was mus- tered in on the 31st day of August, 1861, in Company H of that regiment, under that prince of martinets Capt. Frederick Knefler (after- ward General Knefler), and under whose strict discipline he rose to the rank of orderly ser- geant, and was with his command in the bat- tles of Fort Donelson, Fort Henry and Pitts- burg Landing, the last mentioned battle being also known as the battle of Shiloh. He was seriously wounded in the second day's fight at Pittsburg Landing and was brought home, with other wounded soldiers, by a party personally conducted by Governor Morton. When Mr. Negley had sufficiently recovered to endure exertion he turned his attention to the recruit- ing of a new company of volunteers, and of this company he was later commissioned cap- tain, on the 16th day of January, 1864. This company was mustered in as Company C, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Indiana Volun- teer Infantry, and Captain Negley continued in active service with his company until, in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, he with his company were sacrificed at the historic Frank- lin Ford, to enable the remainder of the army to escape from the Confederate forces. Upon being captured by the enemy, at a point which he had been ordered to hold until relieved, Captain Negley was sent to the infamous An- dersonville prison, where he endured to the full the suffering and tortures which have made that prison odious in the pages of history. Hc was exchanged shortly before the close of the war, and he and his comrades were so greatly incapacitated in a physical way that they did not recuperate in time to again enter active service. After the war Captain Negley re- sumed his active association with farming and stock-raising in Marion County, where he con- tinued thus engaged for many years, marked hy earnest toil and endeavor and by due at- tending success and prosperity. He is now liv- ing retired in the City of Indianapolis, as hon- ored veteran and citizen and scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of the county. He has always taken an active interest in pub- lic affairs, serving as president of the board of trustees of the town of Brightwood before its annexation to the city, and has been an effective worker in the ranks of the Republican

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 72

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