USA > Indiana > Allen County > History of Allen County, Indiana, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 53
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On the 19th of January, 1869, Mr. Williams was appointed Receiver of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad by the United States Circuit Court for the West- ern District of Michigan. still holding his position as Director of the Union Pacific. Finding, however, that the exigencies of the former road demanded bis whole.time and attention, in October, 1869, he resigned ns Director of the Union Pacific, and devoted his whole time and energies to the completion of the " Grand Ropids." opening for transportition nearly two hundred miles of that important road under the order of the United States Court.
Mr. Williams has thus been identified, throughout a busy life, with many public enterprises which have effected important changes in the business and eon- dition of the country. It has been said of him, that, " in the region west of the Alleghanies, he has witnessed the origin, growth, maturity and deeline of the canal system."
His official reports on the various publie improvements under his charge, if collected, wonld make several volumes, while bis publieations on miscellaneous subjects, in pamphlets and periodicals, would fill as much space.
Mr. Williams was, married, November 15, 1831, to Susan Creighton, a daugh- ter of IIon. William Creighton, of Chillicothe, Obio, who was a member of Con- gress Tronu the Chillicothe Distriet, first, during the war of 1812 with England, aud again from 1828 to 1832.
Both possess the respect and esteem of a very large circle of friends and acquaintances, and botb are widely known by their good works in public, social and religious affairs.
JOSEPH K. EDGERTON.
Joseph K. Edgerton has been a resident of Allen County sinee 1844.
HIS ANCESTRY.
He is the third son of Bela Edgerton.and Pbebe (Ketchum) Edgerton, and was born at Vergennes, in the State of Vermont, February 16, 1818. His muaternal grandfather, Joseph Ketchum. whose name be bears, was a merchant and irunmaster at Plattsburg, N. Y., and died at an early age, in the city of New York, in September, 1794. He is of the fifth generation in direct deseent from Richard Edgerton (or Egerton, as the name is spelled in England ), one of the band of English Puritans, who, under the leadership of Maj. John Mason, tbe hero of the Pequod war, removed from Saybrook to Mohican (afterward Nor- wich, Conn. j. and on the 6th of June, 1659. purchased from Uneas and other sachems of the Mohican Indians, a traet of land nine miles square, embracing the site of the city of Norwich, and the present townships of Franklin, Bozrah, Nor- wich, Lisbon, and part of Preston, Conn. The deed to the " Townsend Inbabit- ents of Norwich," for this traet of land, bearing the mark signatures of Oukas, Owaneko and Attawauhood, Mobican chiefs, is attested by the signatures of John Mason and Thomas Tracy, the leaders of the colony. Richard Edgerton was one f' the thirty-five original proprietors of the tract of land thus acquired from the Mohicans. Another of the English settlers and proprietors was William Hyde, one of whose female descendants, in 1744, married Elisha Edgerton, grandson of Richard Edgerton.
The late Chancellor Walworth, of New York, who was a descendant of this William Hyde, devoted the leisure of the later years of his life to the compilation of u genealogy of the Hyde family, which was published, in 1864, in two large octave volumes. From this small colony of English Puritans, some of whom, as i« remarked by one of their historians, " could boast of pedigree as good as any in the land. but they counted little upon that," have sprung some of the most distill- guished families in America. In a letter addressed to the subject of this sketch by Chancellor Walworth, dated February 25, 1865, he says : " I suppose you bave seen iny Hyde Genealogy. I find, by the Congressional Dietionary you went we, that fifty-two Senators or Members of the House of Representatives,
were either descendants of our ancestor, William Hyde, of Norwich, or married wives wbo were descendants." Col. Elisba Edgerton, of Franklin, great-grand- son of Richard Edgerton and father of Bela Edgerton, was an intelligent and sub- stantial farmer. He represented the town of Franklin in the Legislature of Con- necticut in 1803. and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of that State in 1818. His son, Bela Edgerton, born Sept. 28, 1787, was fitted for college under the instruction of Rev. Samuel Nott, brother of President Nott, of Union College, New York, and was graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1809. He was, for a time, a teaeller, and afterward a lawyer and magistrate in Clinton County, N. Y., and in 1827, '28 and '29, represented that county in the Legisla- ture of New York. In February, 1828, during a session of the Legislature, De Witt Clinton, then Governor, died suddenly of apoplexy. He died poor, and an effort was made for the relief of his family by a gift from the State. Mr. Edger- ton was a leader in this effort, although a Democrat and politically opposed to Gov. Clinton. As Chairman of a special committee in the Assembly, be reported a bill for the relief of Clinton's minor children. The bill was strongly opposed by some of the leading anti Clintonians of the Legislature, and produced one of the most excited and eloquent dehates ever heard at Albany. The bill was at first defeated, but reconsidered and in an amended form, as an appropriation of $10,- 000, was finally passed. Two special sessions of the Legislature, while Mr. Edger- ton was a member, were devoted to the revision of the laws of that State, and their work was embodied in the Revised Statutes of 1830. In 1839, Bela Edger- ton removed to Hieksville, Ohio, where for many years he was engaged in farm .. ing, for which he bad a hereditary aptitude aud fondness. In the later years of his life, he resided at Fort Wayne. Ind., in the family of his oldest sun, Alfred P. Edgerton, and died at Fort Wayne September 10, 1874, aged eighty-seven years. He was a man of ability and fine social qualities, and retained much of his mental and physical force until the last of his life.
YOUTH AND EDUCATION.
Josepb K. Edgerton was educated in the common schools of Clinton County, and at the Plattsburg Academy, until his sixteenth year, in 1833, when he be- came a law student in the office of William Swetland, of Plattsburg-" the great lawyer of Northern New York," as he was called by bis cotemporaries of the bar. In 1835, Mr. Edgerton, then in his eighteenth year, sought employment in the eity of New York, and became a student and eler' in the law office of Dudley Selden and James Mowatt. Mr. Selden was an able and eloquent lawyer, and one of the leaders of the New York bar. He served with distinction as one of the representatives of the eity of New York, in the XXXIIId Congress in 1834-35. The character of Mr. Mowatt was in his later years made known to the publie, by the touching tribute paid to his memory and virtues by his widow, the celebrated authoress and actress, Anna Cora Mowatt, in her "Autobiography of an Actress." Mr. Edgerton has ever considered it among the fortunate events of his life, that he was permitted to have the example and instruction of such accomplished lawyers as Mr. Swetland and Mr. Selden.
A LAWYER IN NEW YORK.
He was admitted to the bar of New York in 1839, and from that time until 1844, practiced law in that eity, associated with Mr. George B. Kissaru, under the firm name of Edgerton & Kissatu, their principal business being the transaction of the attorney and solieitor business of Mr. Sclden's office. He was married, in 1839, to Hannah Mariah Spies, youngest daughter of William Spies and Elizabeth ( Chatterton) Spies, of New York.
One of the first eases of which Mr. Edgerton liad sole eharge, was an inter- esting one, as it involved a principle of international law, in its application to the Republie of Texas, viz., the right of a public-armed ship, in the port or within the territorial limits of a friendly power, to be exempt from the jurisdiction of such power. In December, 1839, during the brief national existence of Texas, its entire navy, the little brig of war, Colorado, under the command of Commo- dore Moore, was in the port of New York. Four of the seamen were indueed to desert the ship, and took refuge in a sailor boarding-house in Cherry street, where they ran up a bill for board and elothing of some 850. They were dis- covered, arrested and returned to the brig.
Watkins, the boarding-house keeper, soon after obtained a warrant from the Marine Court of New York for the arrest of the four sailors for his elaim against them, and a Constable went on board the Texan brig and served the writ and was about to take the men ashore. The Commodore was not on board. The First Lieutenant, the Purser and the Commodore's Sceretary, the only men in authority on duty, were not well informed in publie law, and, instead of ordering the Con- stable ashore, parleyed with him, and, as the Purser had not money enough on hand to pay the claim against the men, he went ashore with the Constable to get it.
He could only obtain from the financial agent of Texas, notes of the United States Bank ( Nicholas Biddle's United States Bank of Pennsylvania). As the notes were uneurrent, the offieer refused to receive tbem, and the result was that the Purser gave the Cunstable a note for $52, payable one day after date, specifying that it was for clothing, ete., furnished to the four seamen, and signing it " Flem- ing T. Wells, Purser of the Texan Brig of War Colorado." The discbarge of the seamen from an illegal arrest was the sole consideration of the note. As soon as Commodore Moore learned what had been done, he was very indignant and repudiated the whole arrangement and ordered the Purser not to pay the note.
When next on shore, the l'urser Was arrested on a warrant from the Marine Court, and, for lack of bail, put up as security with the Clerk of Court $70 of the United States Bank notes, the attorney of Watkins consenting to the deposit in lieu of bail. Mr. Edgerton, under instructions from Commodore Moore, was retained to defend the ease " to the last extremity," and he entered on the defenso with the zual uf a young practitioner of twenty-one, well pleased with such a case.
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WAYNE TOWNSHIP.
It was tried in the Marine Court and a verdiet given to the plaintiff, as, in those days, it was almost an invariable rule in that Court to deeide for the plaintiff, who Was generally a sailor or a sailor hoarding-house keeper. Mr. Edgerton removed the case to the Superior Court of New York, where it was fully argued hefore the three Judges. The Chief Justice (ex-Chancellor Samuel Jones) delivered the opinion of the Court, reversing the judgment. of the Marine Court, on the ground taken hy Mr. Edgerton, that the arrest of the seamen on shiphoard was a violation of the sovereign rights of Texas, and their discharge from an illegal arrest was no consideration for the Purser's note. The rights of the short-lived little Republic as a national sovereignty were thus vindicated ut the cost of the sailor hoarding-house keeper, whose experiment in hoarding the Texan sailors, as well as hoarding the Texan ship, cost him about $150. As this is not among the " reported cases," its record here may preserve it from oblivion.
Another of Mr. Edgertou's cases of a peculiar character, during his early practice in New York, was that of the Trustees of the South Baptist Church vs. William Tracy, in Chancery. Tracy was Treasurer of the Church, and was very ultra, if not monomaniac, on the subject of abolition. His untimely obtrusion of his opinions, and his general coudnet in church meetings, hecame so intolerably offensive to the congregation, that after being labored with by the brethren, with- out remedy, he was removed from his office of Treasurer. He refused to give up the hooks and papers of his office, or to render an account, and continued to disturh the congregation more than ever, even threatening to break up the Church if they refused to tolerate him.
Under the advice of a noted abolition lawyer, Horace Dresser, Tracy assumed the role of one persecuted for conscience'sake, but without any of the meekness of a martyr's spirit. The Trustees of the Church at last appealed to the Court of Chancery, for relief, by filing a hill against Traey for an account, and to restrain him from exercising the office of treasurer, and from further disturbing the congregation in their queetings.
Through his counsel, Dresser, he defended the case vigorously. A great deal of testimony was taken as to the sayings and doings of Tracy, and the inter- nal troubles of the Church, on his account, were fully disclosed. Mr. Edgerton, young as he then was in practice, had almost sole charge of the case in behalf of' the Church, until its final argument before Vice Chancellor McCoun, when he was assisted by Mr. Selden. The case was decided in favor of the Church, and the injunction against Tracy made absolutc. He soon after left the Church and joined the Millerites, or Second Adventists, and became one of the craziest of that sect. This case has an affirmative of the principle that a inan's rights of conscience do not warrant him in pounding his opinions into other peo- ple against their will, and to the disturbance or destruction of their peace and comfort.
REMOVAL TO INDIANA.
Iu 1843, Mr. Edgerton visited Indiana on business for a New York client, and during his trip, was favorably impressed with the idea of making Indiana his future home. In 1844, he removed to Indiana, and opened a law and land office ut Fort Wayne, occupying the same office with ex-Gov. Samuel Bigger, who was then in practice there. In 1845, the law partnership of Bigger & Edgerton was formed, which was terminated by the death of Gov. Bigger, in September, 1846. Mr. Edgerton soon established, in his new home, a valuable husiness as a laud and collection ageut, which he found more pleasant and profitable than a general law practice in the then condition of such practice in Indiana. From July, 1850, to July, 1851, he was associated in practice with Charles Case, in the law firm of Edgerton & Case.
A RAILROAD MAN.
Mr. Edgerton was among the first to interest himself in the progress of the Ohio & Indiana and Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroads. In his own right and in behalf of his clients, he made large land suhseriptions to the stock of both roads, these aubscriptions aggregating in the value of the lands from $150,000 to $200,000.
Many thousand acres of land, among them large tracts in La Grange County, Ind., owned hy the great commercial house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., of New York, were, through his agency, made available as stock subscriptions to aid the construction of those roads. In 1854, Mr. Edgerton was inade a Director of the Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company, and in November, 1855, was chosen President of that Company, succeeding Samuel Hanna, who had heen President from its organization, and who cheerfully co-operated in Mr. Edgerton's eleetion. In January, 1856, Mr. Edgerton was elected Director of the Ohio & Indiana road.
The condition of these two roads in 1854 and 1855 was by no means prom- ising. The Ohio & Indiana road, from Crestline to Fort Wayne, was in opera- tion, bnt very imperfectly constructed and poorly equipped, and its financial credit had been exhausted hy thirce mortgages, all of which had heen inadequate to complete and equip the road. The Fort Wayne & Chicago road, iu November, 1855. with its track laid only about balf-way between Fort Wayne and Columnhia City, had exhausted its credit, and was well-nigh at a stand-still. Of a first mortgage of $1,250,000, honds to amount of only about $700,000 had been sold and the residue were unsalahle. The necessity of some broad and comprehen- sive plan to vitalize both corporations was apparent, and strenuous efforts to this end were made in Philadelphia and New York during the winter of 1855-56. In- March, 1856, at a meeting in Philadelphia, of the Presidents of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (J. Edgar Thompson), of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad Company (George W. Cass), of the Ohio & Indiana Railroad Company (Robert MeKelley, President pro tem), and the Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Com- pany, which Mr. Edgerton represented; he proposed the cousolidation of the three latter Companies into one corporation, and the union of these several roads
into one consolidated road from Pittsburgh to Chicago; and in hehalf of his Company, hc negotiated and prepared the preliminary contract of consolidation of March 28, 1856, and the final articles of consolidation of May 6, 1856. The arguments for consolidation were cinhodied in two pamphlets prepared hy Mr. Edg- erton, one an address, signed by the Presidents of the three Companies, to their stockholders, accompanied hy a copy of the articles of consolidation, and the other a letter addressed to Winslow, Lanier & Co., in reply to objections and demands unade by Mr. Charles Moran, in hehalf of stock and hond holders of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The articles of consolidation were finally alınost unanimously approved hy the stockholders of the three Com- panics ; the few stockholders ohjecting receiving compensation by the purchase of their stock at its market value. This consolidation secured the rapid progress of the consolidated road to completion, notwithstanding the financial disasters of 1857 and subsequent years, and laid the foundation of the strength and prosperity of what is now, for its mileage, one of the greatest and most valuable of American railways.
The consolidated corporation, under the name of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company. went into operation August 1, 1856; George W. Case, of the Ohio & Pennsylvania road, was chosen President, und Mr. Edgerton Vice President ; the first four Indiana Direetors heing Samuel Hanna and Mr. Edgerton, of Fort Wayne, William Williams, of Warsaw, and A. L. Wheeler, of Plymouth. Mr. Edgerton held the office of Vice President until his appointment as Receiver of the Coupany in December, 1859, when he resigned as Vice Presi- dent, and was succeeded by Samuel Hanna. In 1857-58-59, Mr. Edgerton, in addition to his duties as Vice President, was Financial and Transfer Agent of the Company, having his office in the city of New York. From February, 1859, until December of that year, he had charge of the Company's legal department, with his office at Fort Wayne.
In December, 1859, the financial embarrassments of the Company, following the great depression of railroad credit in 1857, culminated, and it was deemed necessary to place it under a receivership ; and on application of leading German and English hondholders, represented hy Charles Moran and L. Von Hoffinan & Co. and John Ferguson, of New York, and with the eoneurrence of a large stock- holding interest, Mr. Edgerton was appointed Receiver of the Company hy the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of Ohio, with power to opcrate and manage the whole road from Pittsburgh to Chicago. His receivership was opposed in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which was at that time a stock and boundholder, and aiming to obtain, as it subsequently did oh- tain, full control of the road. Steps were taken, hy a sequestration in Pennsylvania, and an injunction in Illinois, to prevent the exercise of the Receiver's authority over the whole road, and to defeat the receivership.
An emhittered and injurious contest seemed to impend. The names of the counsel employed will indicate the importance of the case. On behalf of the bondholders were Henry Stanberry, Hocking H. Hunter, and Rufus P. Ranney and F. T. Backus, of Ohio, and St. George Tucker Camphell of Philadel- phia ; and in the defense were employed, among other less noted counsel, Noalı H. Swayne and Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio. Mr. Edgerton, on his appointment as Receiver, had expressly stipulated for his resignation if his receivership could not he made aceeptahle; and, in order to compromise difficulties, and prevent what threatened to be a protracted and unprofitable litigation, he resigned his receivership in favor of William B. Ogden, of Chicago, who was agreed upon as his successor. In the election of Directors in March, 1860, following his resignation as Receiver, Mr. Edgerton, by the vote and influence of the Pennsylvania interest in the Company, was defeated as a Director, although he received the vote of over 37,000 shares of the New York and Western stoek. Mr. Edgerton'a receiver- ship was apparently the last struggle, made hy the Western interests in the road, to preserve the independence of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad. From that time it passed rapidly under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, until, in 1870, it was virtually merged in it, hy a lease of one thousand years.
Pending the controversy in regard to the receivership, Mr. Samuel J. Til- den, of New York, was introduced to the Company, hy Mr. Ogdeu. as a legal adviser, well skilled in re-organizing embarrassed railroads ; and, by his advice, a plan of re-organization was prepared and adopted, under which, during 1861-62, a decree of foreclosure against the Company was obtained, and the road sold to & purchasing committee, of which Mr. Tilden was one, and re-conveyed to a re-or- ganized Company, under the name of the " Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway Company."
While this expensive " re-organization" served a useful purpose in the adjust- ment of the Company's complicated deht, consisting mainly of the obligations of the three consolidated companies, and was undoubtedly largely profitable to some of the parties engaged in it-for, pending this reconstruction process, the bonds and stoek and floating deht of the Company were largely depreciated, and were hought at very low prices-the great subsequent prosperity of the road, and its present value, are due, not to the re-organization, hut to the grand position and inherent strength of the road itself, and its capacity to command traffic and earn money. These had heen clearly foreseen hy many of the projectors and early stockholders of the road, who had risked and labored much for it in the days of its adversity and weakness. These remarks are considered due to the interest Fort Wayne and Allen County have ever had in the Pittshurgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, and to the valuable aid and service rendered to it hy their citizens, before it had passed beyond the control of the local stock- holders.
IN POLITICS.
Prior to 1860, Mr. Edgerton, though until then never active in politics, had heen a Whig and voted with that party up to 1853. In 1852, after the taking effect of the new constitution and revised code of Indiana. making
126
HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA.
judges elective, he was an independent eandidate, supported mainly by Whigs, for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the district of Allen and Adams Counties. Judge James W. Borden was the Democratie nominee and was eleeted, the district being strongly Democratie. The new eleetive system for judges was inaugurated iu Indiana by party nominations, and they have unfortu- nntely prevailed ever sinee.
In October, 1860, Mr. Edgerton made his first politieal speech in Indiana in favor of Stephen A. Douglas for President. It was a carefully prepared address upon the question of the relations of the Federal Government to Slavery, the text of the address being the words of Wasbington in hehalf of the Constitu- tional Convention of 1787, to Congress, in presenting the Constitution, viz .:
" The Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and eoneession which the peculiarity of our politieal situation rendered indispensable."
The address was printed, and with other publications from his pen, gave Mr. Edgerton prominence as an advocate of the Demoeratie doctrine of popular sovereignty, represented by Mr. Douglas in the memorable canvass of 1860. In August, 1862, Mr. Edgerton received the Democratic nomination for Congress in the then Tenth District of Indiana, against William Mitchell, of Kendallville, the Republican nominee, who had heen eleeted in 1860, by nearly three thousand majority. The distriet was supposed to be strongly Republican. The canyass of 1862, was a thorough and excited one, and Mr. Edgerton was elected by 436 majority. In the summer of 1863, Mr. Edgerton visited Europe, traveling in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary, and returned home in time to take part in the political campaign of that year.
On April 25, 1863, Military Order No. 9, of Gen. Milo S. Hascall, commanding "the district of Indiana," following Military Order No. 38, of Gen. Burnside, was issued at Indianapolis, and ereated great public excitement in the State. It was regarded by Demoerats as a direct attempt to suppress free speech and the freedom of the press. A private letter from Mr. Edgerton, of May 2, 1863, to Gen. Hascall, asking for an explanation of this Order No. 9, drew from him a public letter in the Indianapolis Journal in reply, tending rather to increase than calm publie excitement. Mr. Edgerton, the day prior to his sailing for Europe, saw Gen. Haseall's letter in New York, and immediately prepared a reply to it, which was first published in the Indianapolis Sentinel, and afterwards republished in the leading Democratic papers of the country. It pro- dueed much comment from the press, and was warmly approved by Demoerats, for it was a frank and elear avowal of the purpose of the Democratic party of Indiana to maintain their right to free discussion. A brief extraet from this letter will indicate spirit and purpose.
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