Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 79

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 79


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At the time when the Boice family settled in Gallia County, Ohio, that section was prac- tically unreclaimed from the forest and thus the conditions encountered were those that fall to the lot of the average pioneer of the locality and period. Those were the days of the log cabin and spinning wheel. Money was very scarce and even calico was commanding fifty cents a yard. On this score the pioneers found it necessary to raise flax, out of which they made the greater portion of their clothing. After a time sheep were introduced and this ushered in the era of lindsey-woolsey clothing and later that of home-made flannel and jeans. When the father of Augustin Boice was com- paratively a young man, he served practical apprenticeship at the carpenter trade and dur- ing his early manhood he was a contractor and builder, having erected many of the houses, barns and bridges in the section in which the family home was maintained. He was a man of sterling integrity and vigorous mentality and he was called upon to serve in various posts of public trust and responsibility, includ- ing those of township trustee and clerk. In the climacteric period leading up to the Civil War .he was a stanch abolitionist and in 1852 he supported the "free soil" ticket. At the time of the war he was known as a radical and uncompromising supporter of the cause of the Republican party. The representatives of the Bradbury family in Ohio were equally stren- uous in their opposition to the slavery question and all of its male members were stanch Re- publicans. The village of Kyger, which was the voting place of Cheshire Township, Gallia County, was an effectively managed sub-station on the line of the historic Underground Rail- road. Among the scenes witnessed by Mr.


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Boice in his schoolboy days was the searching of the village with bloodhounds for runaway slaves. The parents of Mr. Boice continued to maintain their home in Gallia County, Ohio, until their death, and the old homestead farm is still in the possession of the family.


Augustin Boice early began to lend his quota in the work of the home farm and in his boy- hood and youth he attended the district school of Kyger during the winter terms. Under these conditions he continued his studies and labors until the second year of the War of the Rebellion, when he subordinated all other in- terests to the call of patriotism and tendered his services in defense of the Union.


On the 7th of August, 1862, Mr. Boice en- listed as a private in Company B, of the Ninety-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was recruited in Gallia, Lawrence, Sciota, Adams, Pike and Jackson counties and which was mobilized at Portsmouth, Ohio, where it remained about two weeks-a period devoted to hard drilling and the securing of proper equipment. On the 26th of August, the regi- ment received its guns and ammunition and on that same day, five companies, including that of which Mr. Boice was a member, were sent to the mouth of the Big Sandy River to repel a threatened raid. This raid failed to material- ize and they were thence sent to Guyandotte, West Virginia, and then to Ironton, Ohio, where the remainder of the regiment joined them a few days later. On the 7th of Septem- ber, 1862, the regiment was regularly mustered into United States service and Mr. Boice was appointed one of the corporals of his com- pany. At that time the Confederate forces were making strong efforts to drive the Union forces back to the Ohio in the states of Ken- tucky and Virginia. Colonel Lightburn had been defeated at Fayetteville, West Virginia, and the Ninety-first Ohio was sent to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to assist in checking the enemy. It arrived there on the 14th of September and remained until the 26th, when it started on its first raid up the Kanawha. The object of this movement was to surprise, and if possible, to capture the Confederate force at Buffalo. The regiment marched all night and struck the enemy just at daylight, com- pletely surprising them, with the result that the whole Confederate force fled, leaving the camp in the hands of the Northern troops. The doughty Southerners had been preparing their breakfast and left their alluring supply of chickens and turkeys, but the captors did not have time to indulge their appetites. A con- siderable amount of dry goods, boots, shoes. etc., which the Confederate soldiers had secured in raids were left behind in the camp and vari-


ous articles in this store of goods were appro- priated by the "boys in blue". The Ninety- first here first heard the shriek of hostile shells, but as the enemy had aimed high, the mem- bers of this Ohio regiment were not injured, though it must be confessed that a good por- tion of them found their hair exercising pe- culiar propensities. The cavalry, which was to co-operate in the attack, failed to reach its designated point on time, so most of the enemy escaped. In October, the regiment with about twenty thousand other troops advanced up the Kanawha, drove the enemy out and re-estab- lished the outpost at Fayetteville. Here winter quarters were built and during that winter and the following spring, Mr. Boice's regiment did much severe guard duty and drilling. In addition to which it assisted in building a strong fort, which later became of much value. In May, 1863, the Confederate forces made a two days' attack upon Fayetteville, but were repulsed. The fight consisted largely of an ar- tillery duel and as the Union forces were pro- tected by forts, their losses were small. In July, the Ninety-first Regiment started forth in pursuit of Morgan, who was at the time making his memorable raid through Ohio, and while they succeeded in capturing thirty of his men, they failed to encounter his main forces. After the capture of Morgan had been effected, the regiment returned to Fayetteville. In the fall of 1863, it participated in two expeditions to Lewisburg. The first of these expeditions occurred in November and involved much hard marching owing to the rapid retreat of the enemy and the only satisfactory result was the burning of the excellent winter quarters which had been established by the Confederates. In December was made the second expedition and again the enemy failed to stand for an engage- ment, though the Union troops again had the privilege of destroving the winter quarters which had been rebuilt. In the great cam- paign initiated in 1864, the Ninety-first Ohio endured to the full the vicissitudes, dangers and privations marking the progress of the same and it was not denied its full share of honors. The regiment marched more than twelve hundred miles and was actively engaged in twelve battles within that year, including the Sheridan Battles in the Shenandoah Valley. It is a matter of record that this regiment never failed to respond to any call made upon it and that it always acquitted itself with honor. Mr. Boice participated in all of the battles and marches of his regiment up to the time he was wonnded, except in May and June, 1864, when he endured the ignominy of being incapacitated from the result of an attack of measles and the complications resulting there-


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from. His regiment was a member of the Second Brigade, Second Division, of the Army of West Virginia, commanded by General Crook, and it was prominently concerned in Sheridan's operations in the Shenandoah Val- ley. Concerning the history of this regiment, further data are given in the following state- ments which are worthy of perpetuation in this connection :


The regiment's greatest victory was the bat- tle of Carter's Farm, or Stephenson's Depot, fought July 20th, 1864. It was one of the most brilliant victories of the war, but owing to the comparatively small numbers engaged, and the other great events then transpiring, little was said about it at the time. For gal- lantry, it has rarely, if ever, been surpassed. Just before the charge the situation was this: The Confederates were formed in double line of battle across the pike leading from Martins- burg to Winchester, upon elevated ground on the edge of a woods, about three miles north of Winchester, and consisted of General Ram- seur's division of Early's army. Its center rested upon the pike, at which point a battery of artillery of four twelve-pound guns was lo- cated, and more in reserve; its flanks were protected by two brigades of cavalry, Vaughn's and Jackson's, a force more than double that of the Union, acting strictly on the defensive. and all under the command of Major General Ramseur. Opposed to this force and about to assault it was the Second Brigade, Second Division of the Army of West Virginia, com- posed of the Ninety-first and Thirty-fourth Ohio, and the Ninth and Fourteenth West Vir- ginia Regiments, containing at that time about one thousand three hundred and fifty men, com- manded by Colonel I. H. Duval, and formed in a single line of battle across the pike, paral- lel to and about a mile north of the enemy. Its center rested on the pike, the Ohio regiments being east, and the Virginia west of the pike : the Ninetv-first Ohio and Ninth Virginia oc- cnpied the center of the line ; on the flanks were about twelve hundred cavalry-the whole com- manded by General Averell. There were twelve pieces of artillery in rear of the infantry, but when the tug of war came, they could not fire. The ground between the lines was open meadows, nearly level. About 2 P. M. the command, "forward", was given, and this single line, without any reserves or supports, in full view of the enemy and without any protection whatever. but with a confidence born of uni- form success, moved forward in perfect order at right shoulder arms, as if going on parade. The line continued to advance in ordinary time with skirmishes in front until within about three hundred yards of the enemy's line, when


the command to charge was given, and with a yell the whole line rushed forward at a run until within about seventy-five yards of the enemy, when it was halted and every man in- stinctively lay down, and just at this moment the Confederates fired their principal volley, which mostly passed over the men without in- jury. The Union line immediately arose and with a mighty yell rushed upon the enemy and broke through the center, and the whole line gave way in panic, which also broke the second line and the whole fled in confusion. Many of the men threw away their guns and cut off their cartridge boxes and belts. It was partly a hand to hand contest and guns were clubbed. The Ninety-first Ohio and Ninth Virginia cap- tured the four cannon in the pike, two each, but with heavy loss, as the guns had been firing grape and canister. The Ninety-first lost in this charge sixty-eight men killed and wounded out of a total of a little over three hundred men. The total Union loss in killed and wounded was two hundred and eight. The enemy left two hundred and three killed and wounded upon the field, including Generals Lewis and Lilly wounded, and Colonel Board killed. Their total loss, including prisoners, was over four hundred. The Union forces picked up on the battle field about one thou- sand rifles which the enemy had thrown away. The Richmond Examiner of that period de- scribed this action as "the deplorable affair in which Ramseur's division was humiliated in the dust".


On the 24th of August, 1864, at the battle of Halltown, an engagement incidental to Sher- idan's campaign, Mr. Boice received a severe rifle shot wound in his right arm, resulting in the rescction of the middle third of the humerns. This wound nearly entailed fatal results and it was considered by the attending surgeons phenomenal that he recovered, al- though it was more than a year before the wound finally healed. He was permanently dis- abled for further field service and on account of this disability he received his honorable dis- charge on the 29th of May. 1865.


After the close of the war. Mr. Boice re- sumed his educational work. In the autumn of 1865, he was matriculated in the Ohio Uni- versitv, at Athens, in which institution he com- pleted the academic course and was graduated as a member of the class of 1869, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. While an under- graduate he was a prominent member of the Philomathean Literary Society and was con- sidered one of the strongest and most versatile debaters in the college. He represented his society in its literarv exhibition at commence- ment in 1868. While a student in the univer-


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sity, he took up the study of law and later he continued his reading of the same under the able preceptorship of his uncle, Honorable Jo- seph Bradbury, of Gallia County, Ohio, and in September, 1870, he proved himself eligible for and was admitted to the bar of his native state at Athens. In the following month he came to Indianapolis and entered into profes- sional partnership with his college classmate, John L. McMaster, who is now serving on the bench of the Superior Court of Marion County. This effective and mutually pleasing alliance continued for more than a score of years, with- in which the interested principals in the same gained high prestige and marked success in their profession. Mr. Boice, as already inti- mated, showed dialectic powers while still a student in college and his predilections in this line have of course become accentuated and rendered symmetrical through his long and able services as a trial lawyer. Few members of the Indiana har are more thoroughly grounded in the minutiƦ of the science of jurisprudence and few have to their credit a larger number of distinctive victories in connection with im- portant litigated causes. He is at present gen- eral attorney for a number of representative insurance companies and is counsel for various important corporate interests.


Ever aligned under the banner of the Repub- lican party, Mr. Boice has - been a stalwart worker in behalf of its cause and his first vote was cast while he was in the hospital at Balti- more, Maryland, in October, 1864, where he availed himself of the privilege given to soldiers to exercise the right of franchise no matter where located, each being accredited to his re- spective home. He recovered sufficiently to travel and was given a furlough to go home. He arrived at his home in Gallia County on the day of the presidential election and was thus enabled to cast his vote in support of President Lincoln for a second term. From that time to the present, he has never failed to vote at every presidential, state, county, township and city election. The honors and emoluments of public office have never had allurement for Mr. Boice and the only civil office of which he was ever incumbent was that of treasurer of his native township. Mr. Boice is affiliated with Delta Tan Delta College fraternity and is one of the appreciative and valued members of George H. Thomas Post, No. 17, Grand Army of the Republic, and also of the Union Veteran Legion, and has for many years been actively identified with the Indiana State Bar Associa- tion and the Indianapolis Bar Association. In his profession he is eligible for practice in all of the courts of his native state and in the Supreme Court of the United States. As a citi-


zen, Mr. Boice has ever stood exemplar of loyal and genuine public spirit and he is fully in sympathy with the high civic ideals of the In- dianapolis Commercial Club, in which he holds membership, as does he also in the University Club of Indiana and the Marion Club. He was one of the organizers of the American Cen- tral, Life Insurance Company of Indianapolis, of which he was general counsel, as well as a director. He has long been a zealous member of the First Presbyterian Church at Indianap- olis, in which his wife also was a devoted worker and valued member.


On the 8th of August, 1872, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Boice to Miss Adela Verena Johnson, who was born and reared in Athens County, Ohio, and who was a daughter of the late Dr. William P. Johnson, a distinguished physician and surgeon, who served as surgeon of the Eighteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and who was a prominent and influential citizen of Ohio, where he rep- resented Athens County in the legislature and took up his residence in Indianapolis in 1869; here he passed the remainder of his life. hold- ing a position of distinction in his profession and being a citizen to whom was accorded the highest measure of popular confidence and es- teem. Mrs. Boice was summoned to the life eternal on the 28th of June, 1906. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Boice, Parker Johnson Boice, was born in Indianapolis on the 10th of Mav, 1873, and was graduated in Princeton University as a member of the class of 1897 and was a young man of fine character and great promise. His death occurred on the 7th of February, 1904.


CHARLES P. LESH. As president of the C. P. Lesh Paper Company, representing one of the important wholesale enterprises of the cap- ital city, Charles P. Lesh has been a distinct factor in promoting the industrial growth of Indianapolis and has exemplified the force and initiative power which have made the younger generation of business men in the Indiana metropolis so potent in connection with its ad- vancement within the past decade. He has had long experience in his present line of busi- ness and the upbuilding of the large and sub- stantial concern of which he is the executive head has been mainly due to his well directed administration of its affairs. He is numbered among the representative business men and loval and popular citizens of the City of In- dianapolis, and as such is properly accorded specific recognition in this publication.


Charles Perry Lesh was born in the City of Kankakee, Illinois. on the 13th of Mav. 1859, and is a son of Dr. Daniel and Charlotte (Perry) Lesh, the former of whom was born


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on a farm near Eaton, Ohio, February 23, 1828, a member of one of the sterling pioneer fam- ilies of the old Buckeye state, and Mrs. Lesh was born at Summerville, Butler County, Ohio .. Both were reared and educated in that state and there their marriage was solemnized in Oc- tober, 1855. There were two children born of this union, Carrie C. and Charles P. Daniel Lesh became an able physician and surgeon and in 1857 removed from Ohio to Kankakee, Illi- nois, where he was engaged in the practice of his profession until the inception of the Civil War, when he returned to Ohio. His intrinsic loyalty and patriotism caused him to make prompt response to President Lincoln's call for volunteers, as is evidenced by the fact that in August, 1862, he enlisted for three years in Company C, Fiftieth Regular Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was promoted sergeant in October, 1862, and given detached duty in Cincinnati and received discharge because of physical dis- ability in 1864. He ever retained a deep in- terest in his old comrades and signified the same by his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic. After the close of his service in the army Dr. Lesh removed from Ohio to Richmond, Indiana, in the fall of 1864, where he was engaged in the successful practice of his profession until 1870, when he returned to Ohio and located in the village of New Paris, where he remained until 1878, when he came to Indianapolis, where he gained prestige as one of the representative physicians and sur- geons of the city and where he continued in active general practice until 1894 and where he was known and. honored as a man of sterling integrity and as a citizen of the highest type. In the year last mentioned his impaired health caused him to remove to the State of Cali- fornia, where he remained some time, after which he again established his home in Rich- mond, Indiana, where his death occurred on the 18th of December, 1901. In politics the doctor was unwavering in his allegiance to the Republican party, and aside from his able and self-sacrificing ministrations as a physician he did much for the cause of religion and morality, being in the truest sense a friend of humanity and striving with much of intellectual force to aid and uplift his fellow men. He was a most zealous member of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, as was also his devoted wife, and the closing years of his life, during which he lived practically retired from professional work, were devoted largely to earnest and ef- fective church work. In a fraternal way he was identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His wife died October 16, 1881. in Indianapolis, and both arc interred in the cemetery at Eaton, Ohio.


Charles P. Lesh gained his early educa- tional training principally in the public schools. of Richmond, Indiana, and New Paris, Ohio, and was about nineteen years of age at the time of the family removal from the latter place to Indianapolis, in 1878. In this city he secured employment with the Sentinel Pub- lishing Company, in connection with which he continued to be identified with the newspaper business about two years, at the expiration of which he assumed a clerical position with the firm of Merrill, Hubbard & Company, dealers in books and stationery. Later he entered the employ of the Indiana Paper Company, in whose establishment he gained a thorough and intimate knowledge of the business in which it has been his to gain so distinctive success and precedence in an independent way. He re- mained with this concern, a valued and trusted employe, for a period of about nine years and then became the Indianapolis representative of. Lewis Snyder's Sons Paper Company, of Cin- cinnati, one of the leading concerns of its kind in Ohio's "Queen City". He retained this in- cumbency about three years, at the expiration of which, in May, 1896, he engaged in the wholesale paper business on his own responsi- bility, by the organization and incorporation of the C. P. Lesh Paper Company, of which he has since been president and of which Perry H. Clifford is secretary and treasurer. The large and finely stocked and equipped estab- lishment of the company has its quarters at Nos. 121-125 Kentucky avenue, and 212-214 West Georgia street. The concern controls a large and substantial trade throughout the wide territory tributary to Indianapolis as a distributing center, and its effective service and correct business methods have gained to it a patronage of representative order. The com- pany is numbered among the progressive and solid commercial concerns of the capital city and has contributed its quota to the industrial prestige of Indianapolis as a manufacturing and jobbing center of importance.


Essentially loyal and public-spirited as a citi- zen, Mr. Lesh is identified with various civic bodies whose efforts have done much to pro- mote the advancement and material prosperity of Indianapolis, and he is also identified with leading social organizations in the city. His political support is given to the Republican party, though he has never manifested aught of predilection for public office, and in the Ma- sonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty- second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scot- tish Rite, his affiliations being as here noted : Mystic Tie Lodge No. 398, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he was master for two terms; Keystone Chapter No. 6, Royal Arch Masons;


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Raper Commandery No. 1, Knights Templar ; Indiana Sovereign Consistory, Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, and Murat Temple, An- cient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. and Mrs. Lesh are both members of the Meridian Street Methodist Church.


On the 15th of June, 1892, Mr. Lesh was united in marriage to Miss Ora Wilkins, who was born in Indianapolis, on the 25th of July, 1866, and who is a representative of one of the old and distinguished pioneer families of the capital city. She is a daughter of John A. and Lavina (King) Wilkins, the former a native of Indianapolis, where he was born on the 6th of May, 1836, and the latter born in Washington County, Indiana, on the 1st of January, 1840. The father died in Indian- apolis on the 26th of December, 1906, and his widow still maintains her home in this city. Of their five children three are living, of whom Mrs. Lesh is the eldest; Albert, who married Miss Elizabeth Miller, is a resident of Terre Haute, Indiana, and Harley J. maintains his home in Indianapolis.


John A. Wilkins was long numbered among the representative business men and influen- tial citizens of Indianapolis, and was a man whose influence for good was manifest in all the relations of his signally honorable and use- ful life. He was for many years engaged in the manufacturing of furniture in Indianap- olis, as senior member of the firm of Wilkins & Hall, and later he became one of the stock- holders of the National Accident Association, of which he was secretary for a number of years prior to his demise. He was the or- ganizer of the Ames Institute, and was for some time a member of the official board of Asbury University, now known as DePauw University, at Greencastle, Indiana.




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