USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes > Part 73
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HISTORY OF GREATER INDIANAPOLIS.
party. He is a valued member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the F. & A. M., and while he has no active association with any church, he has always been recognized as a cheerful contributer and willing helper.
On the 10th day of March, 1864, while en- gaged in recruiting his company for service in the Union army, Captain Negley was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Ann Hilde- brand, who was born and reared in Marion County, where her parents, Uriah and Delilah (O'Rourke) Hildebrand, were early settlers. Her mother was born in Ireland and was a child at the time of the family emigration to America, settlement being made in Mary- land. Captain David D. and Margaret A. Neg- ley became the parents of nine children, and of the number three sons and three daughters are living, as has already been stated in a pre- ceding paragraph.
Harry E. Negley, the immediate subject of this review, passed his boyhood and youth on the old homestead farm and early became inured to its sturdy discipline, his father's favorite maxim being, "Whatever is worth do- ing at all is worth doing right". He was af- forded the advantages of the public schools, in- cluding the high school at the then town of Brightwood, and in 1890, having previously entered upon the study of law, he entered the law office of the firm of Harding & Hovey, of Indianapolis, under whose able preceptorship he continued his technical studies until he was adınitted to the bar of Marion County in No- vember of the same year. In November, 1894,
he opened his first law office, in Indianapolis, where his professional novitiate was practically compassed by the same labors and struggles that fall to the lot of the average young disciple of Blackstone, but he duly emerged into the light of success and prosperity in his chosen vocation with the result that he now commands a large and substantial professional business and is recognized as one of the able and ver- satile members of the bar of his native county, his specialty, if he can be said to have one, being real estate titles.
Progressive and public-spirited as a citizen. Mr. Negley has shown a commendable interest in local affairs and has been active in the local column of the Republican party, of whose prin- ciples he is an able and uncompromising ad- vocate. In the fall of 1899 he was elected to represent the First Ward of Indianapolis in the common council, and in 1901 he was chosen as his own successor, by a largely in- creased majority. He served on several of the important committees of that municipal body. and as he was the only lawyer in the council during his entire term of service he was largely
relied upon by the business interests and com- mercial bodies of the city when important mat- ters were pending in the council. During his second term as a member of the council he was elected secretary of the Marion County Repub- lican Central Committee. In the earlier period of his practice at the bar Mr. Negley was as- sociated with the late Judge William Irvin, former judge of the Criminal Court, and he later had joint office with Hon. James A. Pritchard 'until 1906, when Judge Pritchard was elected to the bench of the Criminal Court. Since that time Mr. Negley has conducted an individual practice.
Though he has no active church alliances, Mr. Negley is ever ready to extend his aid in the furtherance of all matters of interest to the churches and their allied societies. He is affiliated with Millersville Lodge No. 126, Free and Accepted Masons; Winamac Tribe No. 279, Improved Order of Red Men, and Clifton Lodge No. 544, Knights of Pythias. He is a past sachem of the Improved Order of Red Men, and in that organization he has served since 1903 as legal adviser of the great coun- cil, or state organization, in all its business matters.
On the 1st day of June, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Negley to Miss Edith Lee Grandy, youngest daughter of Rev. Ira B. and Julia (Lee) Grandy. Mrs. Negley was born at Mt. Carmel, Franklin County, Indiana, on the 14th day of November, 1869, and her parents are now both deceased. Her father was widely known as a clergyman of the Univer- salist Church, and her mother was a lineal descendant of the patrician and historic Lee family of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Negley have one child, Margaret Lee Negley, who was born on the 29th day of December, 1902.
WILLIAM WALLACE. A scion of one of the distinguished pioneer families of Indiana, of which his honored father, the late David Wal- lace, was an early governor, the subject of this memoir is a brother of the late General Lew Wallace and he himself gained prominence as an able member of the bar of the state and as a citizen of influence and great public spirit. He served for a number of years as postmaster of Indianapolis and was incumbent of this of- fice at the time of his death, which occurred on the 9th of April, 1891. On other pages of this work appear other articles in which specific data are given concerning the family history and thus it is unnecessary to repeat the same in the present connection.
William Wallace was born in Brookville Franklin County, Indiana, on the 16th of Oc- tober. 1825, and is a son of David and Esther (Test) Wallace. At the time of his birth his
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father was recognized as one of the leaders of the bar of what was then designated as White Water Valley, and in 1837 his father was re- elected governor of the state, whereupon he removed to Indianapolis. Thus the subject of this memoir. was about twelve years of age at the time when the family home was established in the capital city. He gained his rudimentary education in the common schools of his native county and thereafter continued his studies in the schools of Indianapolis, having received a liberal education, according to the standard of the locality and period. No better tribute to his memory could, perhaps, be given in this work than the following memorial adopted by the Marion County Bar Association at the time of his death, and it is most consonant that this tribute be perpetuated in a publication of this order. In the reproduction of the memorial but slight change is made, either by elimina- tion or addition.
"The subject of this memorial came to this city with his father, and thereafter resided here continuously. He received, for those days, a liberal education. He pursued the study of law while acting as deputy clerk of the courts of the county, and in the year 1850 was formal- ly admitted to the bar.
"He had a manly bearing which attracted attention and won confidence; a gentle dignity which at all times was felt, and yet which never repelled. He exhibited such uniform def- erence to the court and courtesy to his asso- ciates in the profession that he was always a favorite both with the bench and bar. He from the first had, and always maintained, a high conception of the character of a lawyer, and his whole life was an exemplification of that conception.
"He rightly held that a lawyer's integrity and honor should be without blemish or spot; that his dutv toward his clients and the court re- quired the utmost fairness and frankness, with- out attempt at dissimulation, either as to law or fact, and his conduct in his office and in court was regulated on these principles.
"He was possessed of a lofty spirit which was instantly aflame at the exhibition of any dis- honest, dishonorable or unmanly conduct; and on such occasions he was quick and vigorous in speech and condemnation, yet his generous nature harbored no malice, and he was ever ready to condone and forget any repented fault and was at all times charitable in his judgments of the conduct and motives of others.
"If in the momentary heat or excitement of a contest, he ever said or did anything, which, upon reflection, he considered beneath the con- duet of a Christian gentleman, or that might be construed as an approach to rudeness, he
was prompt to make such explanation or apol- ogy as the occasion demanded.
"He inherited from his father those rare powers of eloquence and persuasion of which mention has already been made. Actuated by such principles, and possessing and exercising such qualities, he speedily took position at this bar. In the year 1854 he formed a co-part- nership for the practice of the law with the Honorable Benjamin Harrison, under the name of Wallace & Harrison. Though young, the firm soon came to the very fore front in the profession. This partnership continued until dissolved by the election of Mr. Wallace as clerk of the county, in 1860.
"After his term as clerk expired, he re- sumed the practice of the law, and his busi- ness at once became very large and profitable.
"Many years ago, in the trial of a protracted and exciting cause, he received a clear warning as to his physical condition, and that he must be extremely careful in exposing himself to the excitement and the exhausting labors incident to such contests.
"He had, however, by his qualities of heart and mind and his well-earned and thoroughly established reputation for integrity and sagac- ity, so drawn about him a clientage for purposes of advice and consultation that financially he was the better, rather than the worse, for the change in the character of his business.
"He had by his clients and his fellow citizens outside of them and by the courts, been selected many times to manage and settle delicate and important trusts, the last of which, the re- ceivership of the banking house of Fletcher & Sharpe, involving vast labor, care and respon- sibility, was not yet wholly completed at the time of his death.
"Every trust confided to him was loyally and conscientiously executed to the entire satisfac- tion of those whose rights and interests he held in his hands.
"Although holding earnest political convic- tion, which he announced with all the force and enthusiasm of his nature, yet so kindly was his disposition, so gentle his bearing, that among his warmest and closest friends will be found måny holding, and in like manner ex- pressing, opinions directly opposed to his own. And although for many years one of the lead- ing advisers and active supporters of one of the great political parties of the country, in times when party spirit ran high, yet no one has ever accused or even suspected him of ad- vising or consenting to any aet or method not consistent with the most pure and lofty stan- dard of an American citizen.
"With his acts in other relations of life, his position in the great fraternal societies of the
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country ; of his manifold duties to the church and the state well performed, and of the sacred family relation, it is not the province of this memorial to speak ; and wheresoever considered, language will not be found to give adequate ex- pression to the sentiments sought to be con- veyed.
"Thus William Wallace lived among us ; thus he won and held our esteem and affections, and thus he died. But the memory of his manly and generous nature, his high sense of honor, and the many 'kindly deeds, kindly done,' shall long live in our hearts. He has gone to his rest, leaving a name unsullied, as an inheritance to his children, and the pride of his associates in; his profession."
LEW WALLACE. Named in honor of his dis- tinguished uncle, the late General Lew Wal- lace, the subject of this sketch is numbered among the representative members of the bar of Indianapolis and is a son of the late Will- iam Wallace, who was long one of the honored and influential citizens of the capital city, and to whom a brief memorial is dedicated on other pages of this compilation.
Lew Wallace was born in Indianapolis, on the 20th of May, 1857, and after completing the curriculum of the public schools, including the high school, he was matriculated in Butler University, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1877 and from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then began the study of law under the able preceptorship of his honored father and was admitted to the bar in 1879. Thereafter he continued to be associated with his father in practice until 1888, when he removed to New York City, where he was actively identified with the work of his profession for the ensuing five years. He then returned to Indianapolis and here he has since been engaged in general prac- tice. He has built up a successful business and his clientage is of distinctively repre- sentative character. He is known as a dis- criminating and resourceful trial lawyer and as a counsel well fortified in the knowledge of the minutiæ of the law. He has never sought political preferment but is aligned as a stalwart in the local ranks of the Republican party. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and is also a member of Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
On the 16th of October, 1883, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wallace to Miss Mary Esther Warrack, of Wheaton, Illinois. She was horn and reared in that state and is a daughter of the late James Warrack, who was a promi- nent business man and influential citizen of
Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Wallace have two chil- dren, Warrack, who is at college, and Lydia, who is the wife of Henry Bernard Dresher, of Sacramento, California.
JOSEPH TAGGART, an honored and essentially representative business man of Indianapolis, is president of the Taggart Baking Company and has been identified with the business interests of the capital city for a period of nearly forty years, within which he has gained distinctive success and ever commanded the confidence and high regard of the community. His business career has been one of consecutive identification with the important line of industrial enter- prise which now enlists his attention, and the concern of which he is the head is the largest of its kind in the state, being thoroughly mod- ern in equipment and appointments. Con- tinued success is the ultimate criterion of merit and reliability in the industrial and commercial world, and judged from this standpoint the en- terprise of which Mr. Taggart is the head is justly to be designated as one of the most im- portant specific industries in the state, and he himself is known as an unostentatious but progressive and public-spirited citizen, exempli- fying in his character the sturdy traits of the virile race from which he is sprung.
Mr. Taggart finds no small measure of satis- faction in the fact that he may designate him- self a Manxman and that the name which he bears has long been identified with the annals of the beautiful little Isle of Man. There he was born on the 5th of October, 1853, and the place of his nativity was the picturesque little City of Ramsey, where his father was engaged in the baking business for many years. He is a son of James and Elizabeth (Lewthwaite) Tag- gart, both of whom passed almost their entire lives on the Isle of Man, secure in the high re- gard of all who knew them. In his native town, Mr. Taggart received a good common school education, and there he learned the baker's trade under the direction of his honored father. In 1871, when about eighteen years of age, Mr. Taggart immigrated to the United States and took up his residence in Indianapolis, where his elder brother, Alexander, had already estab- lished himself in the bakery business. For a time Mr. Taggart was associated with his broth- er in the work of his trade and about 1883 he engaged in the bakery business in an independ- ent wav, beginning operations on a modest scale and gradually expanding the scope of the enterprise, to keep pace with the demands of an appreciative and rapidly increasing patron- age. The business was conducted for many years under the title of the Joseph Taggart Bakery, and in 1905 a reorganization was ef- fected under the present title, the Taggart Bak-
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ing Company. The personnel of the executive corps of the company, which is incorporated under the laws of the state, is as here noted : Joseph Taggart, president ; Alexander Taggart, treasurer ; and Alexander L. Taggart, secretary and general manager. Alexander Taggart is the brother of the president and the former's son is the secretary and general manager. Alex- ander Taggart is individually. mentioned in this work.
The subject of this review has at all times been signally loyal to the duties and responsi- bilities of citizenship, and though he has never had aught of desire for political office he ac- cords a stanch allegiance to the Republican party. Both he and his wife are members of the Meridian Street Methodist Episcopal Church.
On the 16th of November, 1880, Mr. Tag- gart was united in marriage to Miss Matilda Abright, who died in 1893 and who is survived by two children-Susan and Ruth. On the 14th of September, 1898, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Taggart to Miss Florence Thomp- son, and they have one child, Richard.
ORANGE G. PFAFF, M. D., merits consider- ation as one of the distinguished representa- tives of the medical profession in the capital city of his native state, which has been his home since his boyhood days and in which he has advanced to unmistakable precedence in one of the most exacting professions to which one may turn his attention. The doctor traces his lineage back to sterling German origin and the ancestral line is followed through recorded data hack to the fourteenth century in the history of the great German Empire. The family was founded in America in the early Colonial epoch and the doctor's paternal grandfather, was a gaunt soldier in the Continental line in the War of the Revolution.
Dr. Orange G. Pfaff, as already intimated, is a native son of the fine old Hoosier common- wealth. He was born in the village of West- field, Hamilton County, Indiana, on the 28th of April, 1858, and is a son of Dr. Jacob L. and Jane (Wall) Pfaff, the former of whom was born in Pennsylvania, but reared in North Carolina, and the latter was a native of Ohio and was reared in Indiana. The father devel- oped a distinctive antipathy to the institution of slavery and his antagonism finally led to his removal to Indiana, where he took up his resi- dence in the year 1840, locating in Hamilton County, where he continued in the active prac- tice of his profession until his death which oc- curred in 1859. His devoted wife died about three months later and of their seven children four are now living. The father was an able physician and surgeon according to the stand-
ard of his day and was a man of superior inte' lectual force and one whose life was undefiled hy thought of wrong or mark of injustice.
The subject of this sketch was an infant at the time of his parents' death. Thus doubly orphaned, he was brought to Indianapolis, where he was reared under the guidance and care of his elder brothers who afforded him every possible advantage. His early educa- tional discipline was secured in the public schools of this city and included a course in the high school. A youth of alert mentality and distinctive ambition, he naturally formu- lated definite plans for a future career and at the age of twenty years began the study of medicine under the able preceptorship of the late T. B. Harvey. Under these auspicious conditions was laid an excellent foundation for a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the sciences of medicine and surgery which later enabled Dr. Pfaff to achieve so much of distinc- tion in his profession. In 1878 he was matric- ulated in the Medical College of Indiana, in which he eventually completed the prescribed course and in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1882 and from which he received his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. For the six months pursuant to his graduation he remained in the office with his preceptor, Dr. Harvey, and at the expira- tion of this time he received an appointment as resident physician of the Marion County Asylum, of which office he continued the in- cumbent for eighteen months. After resigning this position he went to the State of Wisconsin, where he was engaged in practice for a brief interval. He then returned to Indianapolis, where he has since continuously followed the work of his profession and where his success as a physician and surgeon has been of the most unequivocal order. In more recent years he has given special attention to gynecology, in which specific field he is a recognized authority and in which his services are much in demand in profession and consultation. Dr. Pfaff has not only been particularly successful in the di- rect work of his profession hut has also done effective service in the field of technical edu- cation. He has been identified with the Med- ical College of Indiana, his alma mater, in the capacity of lecturer and instructor and, his services in this connection inured greatly to the prestige of the institution. As a member of the faculty of this college, he occupied for some time the chair of clinical diseases of women, and after the death of Dr. Dunning, succeeded to the chair of gynecology in this institution when the various medical colleges were amalgamated under the Indiana Univer- sity. At the present time he occupies the chair
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of gynecology in the Medical School of Indiana University, into which the Medical College of Indiana was merged and which is the medical department of the University of Indiana. He has for many years served as consulting gyne- cologist to the Indianapolis city dispensary, and also to St. Vincent Hospital and City Hospital.
Dr. Pfaff has been enthusiastic and unre- mitting in his devotion to his profession and has spared no pains to keep himself closely in touch with the advance made in the sciences of both medicine and surgery. In 1890 he com- pleted a special post-graduate course in gyne- cology in the New York Post-Graduate and Medical School & Hospital and in the follow- ing year he did effective post-graduate work in the New York Polyclinic. In 1892, to still further his knowledge of gynecological surgery he studied under the instruction of the eminent Dr. August Martin, of Berlin, Germany, and also attended the clinics in the medical depart- ment of the University of Berlin. The doctor is a close observer of the unwritten ethics of his profession and commands the unqualified esteem of his confreres. He is an active and valued member of the Indianapolis Medical Society, of which he was president in 1907, the Indiana State Medical Society, the Mississippi Valley Medical Association and the American Medical Association.
As a citizen, Dr. Pfaff has not permitted his insistent professional interests to withdraw him from the vantage ground of loyalty and public spirit and he has shown a lively concern in all that has touched the civic and material progress and general welfare of his own city. In politics he gives stanch allegiance to the cause of the Republican party, though he has never had aught of desire for public office.
On the 24th of November, 1885, Dr. Pfaff married Miss Mary Alvey, daughter of James H. Alvev, a well known citizen of Indianapolis, where Mrs. Pfaff was born and reared. The child of this union is Dudley Alvey.
JOHN H. TALGE. A unique and important addition to the manufacturing industries of Indianapolis is that of the Talge Mahogany Company, of which John H. Talge of this review is president and active manager, being known as one of the alert, progressive and sub- stantial business men of Indianapolis and as one who is contributing in no uncertain way to the city's prestige as a manufacturing and commercial center. The valuable woods from which are manufactured the fine veneers which constitute the chief output of the company's large and well equipped plant are imported in a direct way by the concern, which has re- course in this line to far distant lands, from which are derived these necessary supplies. As
one of the veritable "captains of industry" in the Greater Indianapolis, Mr. Talge is well en- titled to representation in this work.
John H. Talge was born in the City of Louis- ville, Kentucky, in 1867. His father John B. Talge gave his allegiance to the cause of the Union when the Civil War was precipitated on a divided nation, and as he could not enlist in his home state, Kentucky, he came across into Indiana at the time of President Lincoln's first call for volunteers and enlisted as a pri- vate in the Forty-second Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which command he proceeded to the front. At the expiration of his three months' term of enlistment he re-enlisted as a veteran, in the same regiment, and he continued in active service until the close of the war. He campaigned largely under General Thomas. He was taken prisoner at Pulaski, Tennessee, and after being held a captive for an interval he was exchanged and forthwith rejoined his regi- ment. He participated in the Grand Review of the victorious troops in the City of Washing- ton after victory had crowned the Union arms. He moved to Indianapolis during the boom in the early seventies. He became associated with the Capital Chair Company in the manufactur- ing of chairs, and their factory was the second brick building erected in West Indianapolis, where also he erected the second house, which became his home. During the great financial panic of the '70s he, like many another, met with most serious reverses-in fact, he lost every dollar invested and represented in his chair manufacturing business, so that he found it necessary to resort to manual labor to pro- vide for his family. In this connection he worked for one dollar and ten cents a day in connection with excavating for the erection of the present state capitol. He died in 1900, at the age of sixty-five years, and his wife three years earlier.
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