History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 32

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

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an active part in politics. In 1848 he established a newspaper in Indianapolis called The Free Soil Ban- ner, which took radical ground against the extension of slavery and against slavery itself. The motto was " Free soil, free States, free men." He had been pre- viously a Democrat. He served upon the Frce Soil electoral ticket and upon important political commit- tees, and took the stump in advocacy of his princi- ples in the Presidential campaigns of 1848 and 1852.

In 1852 he contributed the funds, in a great meas- urc, to establish The Free Soil Democrat, a newspa- per for the dissemination of his cherished views upon these questions. This was finally merged in The In- dianapolis Journal in the year 1854, Mr. Butler having purchased a controlling interest in that news- paper. In the year 1854 the Republican party was organized out of the anti-slavery men of all parties, and took bold ground upon the subject, and the Journal became its organ. The influence Mr. But- ler exerted upon public sentiment was great and be- neficent. He ranged in the higher walks of politics, steadfastly and intelligently advancing the great ideas, then unpopular, which have since become the univer- sal policy of the nation. He lived to see his prin- ciples written upon the banners of our armies and gleaming in the lightning of a thousand battles, to see them embodied in the Constitution and hailed with delight wherever free government has an advocate.

Mr. Butler gave further evidence of devotion to his principles by aiding in the establishment of a free-soil paper in Cincinnati, and taking a wider range when Kossuth came preaching the gospel of liberty for down-trodden Hungary, he again opencd his liberal purse for humanity.

But he sought quiet and retirement. Many years ago he removed his residence from his old home in town to his farm north of and beyond its limits. Here, among and in the shade of the great walnut-, ash-, sugar-, and elm-trees, he built bis house, and here he spent the remainder of his years. Here, walking or sitting beneath these grand representa- tives of the primeval forest, might be seen his ven- erable form fitly protected by their shadows. Here he received his friends and welcomed them to his hospitable board. Here his family assembled, his

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children and his children's ehildreo, to enjoy his society and to pay respect to his wishes.

The appearance of Mr. Butler was not striking. Of about the average height, as he walked he leaned forward, as if in thought. His eye was bright and cheerful, and the expression of his countenance was sedate, indieative of sound judgment, strong eommon sense, an unruffled temper, a fixedness of purpose, and kindness of heart. His voice was not powerful or clear, his delivery was slow and somewhat hesitat- ing; but sueh was the matter of his speech, so elear, cogent, apt, and striking, that he compelled the at- tention of his hearers. The weight of his eharacter, the power of his example, the charm of a life of rec- titude and purity gave a force to his words which, coming from an ordinary man, might not have been so carefully heeded. Emerson says, " It makes a great difference to the sentence whether there be a man behind it or not." He was a little shy and un- obtrusive in his manners, especially among strangers, but to his old friends cordial, winning, and confiding. He avoided controversies, kept quiet when they were impending, and conciliated by his deeorous forbear- ance those who, by active opposition, would have been roused to hostility.

Stronger than all other features of his character was his unaffected piety. For many years of his life he was an humble and devoted Christian, illus- trating in his daily walk and conversation the prin- ciples he professed. Devout without display, zealous and charitable, he placed before and above all other personal objects and considerations his own spiritual eulture ; looking to that true and ultimate refinement which, begun on earth, is completed in heaven.

The great and memorable work of Mr. Butler was connected with the Northwestern Christian Univer- sity, now ealled " Butler University." He, with many friends, had for some years contemplated the establishment of this institution, and in the winter of 1849-50 obtained the passage of a eharter through the Legislature of this State. Mr. Butler drafted it, and had the credit of giving expression in it to the peculiar objeets of the University. The language of the seetion defining them is as follows : " Au institu- tion of learning of the highest elass for the education

of the youth of all parts of the United States and of the Northwest ; to establish in said institution departments or colleges for the instruction of the students in every branch of liberal and professional education ; to educate and prepare suitable teachers for the common schools of the country ; to teach and inculeate the Christian faith and Christian morality as taught in the saered Seriptures, discarding as un- inspired and without authority all writings, formulas, ereeds, and articles of faith subsequent thereto, and for the promotion of the seienees and arts." As to intellectual training, this calls for a high standard. As to religious teaching, it is radically liberal.

But Mr. Butler was not an aggressive reformer. His gentle nature had no taint of acrimony or intol- eranee in it. While he entertained, announced, and adhered to his own views with unalterable tenacity, he exercised toward all who disagreed with him an ample Christian charity. He was not a seetarian in the narrow and offensive sense. He was willing to wait patiently for the gradual and slow changes of publie opinion as truth was developed.

For twenty years he served as president of the board of directors of the University, and in 1871, at the age of seventy, he retired from the office, saying in his letter of resignation, " I have given to the in- stitution what I had to offer of care, of counsel, of labor, and of means, for the purpose of building up not merely a literary institution, but for the purpose of building up a collegiate institution of the highest class, in which the divine character and the supreme Lordship of Jesus, the Christ, should be fully recog- nized and earefully taught to all the students, to- gether with the seienee of Christian morality, as taught in the Christian Scriptures, and to place sueh an institution in the front ranks of human progress and Christian eivilization as the advocate and expo- nent of the common and equal rights of humanity, without distinction of sex, raee, or color."

He had fought the good fight, he had adhered to his purpose, he had not labored in vain. But for ten years more, and until his death, he gave the Uni- versity his attention and his best thought. He had devoted so many years of his life and so much of his energy to this purpose that it had beeome the habit

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of his being to promote and protect the interests of the University. His influence and his spirit are still as powerful as ever there. Absence, silence, and death have no power over them.

He did not run to the mountains, or the seaside, or Saratoga for happiness. His residence, his car- riage, and his dress were plain. He gratified his taste, but it was an exalted one. The campus of a college, his gift to men, was to him a finer show than deer-parks or pleasure-grounds. The solid walls of the University were more pleasing than a palace carved and polished and decorated for his own com- fort. He delighted to look upon well-trained men and women rather than pictures and statuary. Ile preferred to gather the young and docile of the hu- man race, and put them on exhibition, rather than short-borns or Morgan horses, and yet he did not despise or underrate these other good things. He gratified a refined and ennobled taste when he selected the man for culture and not the animal. But it was not all a matter of taste; he looked much farther than that. He loved cultivated men and women for their uses; for their power and capability to do good ; to teach the truth, to set examples ; to lead men from vice and ignorance; and to give them strength and encouragement. And so he put forth, for many of the best years of his life, his constant exertions to build up a great institution of learning, in which the principles of human freedom and of Christianity should be taught forever. He did not die without the sight. He inspired many to unite with him in the work, and has laid a foundation in a place and in a way that, so far as can be seen, will be perpetual for great good.

The Circuit Court was the only one known here till 1849, except the Probate Court, which was hardly accounted a court, and not held in high consideration, being little more than a sort of relief to the Circuit Court, the probate business of which it assumed. The judge was never or rarely a lawyer, and his busi- ness was that of an accountant rather than a judge. In 1849 the bar decided, after some consultation, that the Circuit Court needed to be relieved in a more ef- fective fashion than the Probate Court did it, and the late Oliver H. Smith drafted a bill to create a Com-

mon Pleas Court for this county. It passed, and Abram A. Hammond, subsequently Lieutenant-Gov- ernor and Governor, was made the first judge and clerk, the bill adding one duty to the other to make the fees a sufficient salary. In a year he went to Cali- fornia, and was succeeded by Edward Lander, an elder brother of the late Gen. Fred. Lander, and the first chief justice of Washington Territory. An act of the Legislature of May 11, 1852, abolished this local court and created a State system of Common Pleas Courts, specially charged with probate business, but given also concurrent jurisdiction with the Cir- cuit Court and justices of the peace in a certain range of civil and criminal business. The order of judges of this court will be found in the list of county officers. The district contained Marion, Boone, and Hendricks Counties. In 1873 " all matters and bus- iness pending in the Courts of Common Pleas" were " transferred to the Circuit Courts of the proper counties," and the system of Common Pleas Courts eame to an end, after an existence in Marion County of nearly a quarter of a century.

In the courts of inferior jurisdiction the justices of the county and city occasionally attained a credit- able and well-carned distinction. Among these were Henry Brady, Thomas Morrow, Samuel Moore, Charles Bonge, Hiram Bacon, James Johnson, John C. Hume, and others in the county outside of the city ; and in the city, Obed Foote, Henry Bradley, Caleb Scudder, Charles Fisher, and particularly Wil- liam Sullivan, whose long tenure of the office, with the extent of his business and the soundness of his judgment, made him of almost equal authority with the Circuit Court. For many years he was almost the only justice of the peace that the bar would trust with any business.

WILLIAM SULLIVAN .- The ancestors of Mr. Sullivan were among the earliest settlers of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the adjoining State of Delaware. His grandfather, Moses Sullivan, was of Irish-English descent, and his wife, Mary Parker, of Kent County, Md., was of English extraction. Their children were David, William, and Mary, the first-named of whom was the father of the subject of this sketch. He married Elizabeth Peacock in 1794,

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and settled in Kent County, Md. Their children were Joel, Aaron, Sarah, Nathan P., William, Ellen C., and George R. The survivor of these children, William Sullivan, was born April 25, 1803. His father having died when the lad was in his fifth year, he was placed in the academy at Elkton, Md., and remained at this institution until his seventeenth year. On the death of his mother in 1827 he made an extended tour for purposes of observation and improvement, and continued his studies, after which he accepted employment from a corps of civil engi- neers as land surveyor and general assistant, and gained much practical knowledge in this vocation.

Hle removed in 1833 to Ohio, and for a term en- gaged in teaching, subsequently entering Hanover College, Indiana, where he was employed both in study and as an instructor. In 1834 Indianapolis became his home, where he immediately opened a private school, and later became connected with the Marion County Seminary, of which he acted as prin- cipal. In 1836 he was appointed to the office of civil engineer of the city of Indianapolis, and under his direction the first street improvements were made. The office of county surveyor of Marion County was also conferred upon him. During this time he con- structed a large map of the city for general use, and a smaller one for the use of citizens. Mr. Sullivan took an active interest in educational matters, and was instrumental in organizing and building the Franklin Institute, which in its day enjoyed a suc- cessful career. Ile on dissolving his connection with this institution accepted the appointment of United States deputy surveyor of public lands, and imme- diately entered upon the discharge of his duties in Northern Michigan among the Chippewa Indians, then a troublesome and dangerous tribe. He was, while discharging the duties of this office, appointed chief assistant of the distribution post-office, then removed to Indianapolis, and held the position for four years, keeping account of the business and making quarterly and final settlement of the office receipts during the whole of that time.

In the spring of 1841 he was elected mayor of the city, and served one term. In the fall of that year he was chosen justice of the peace in and for Centre

township, Marion Co., at Indianapolis, and continued to hold the office until 1867, a period of twenty-six years, frequently discharging the duties of police judge during the absence of the mayor. He was also, while acting as justice of the peace, the only United States commissioner at Indianapolis. He was later appointed by the United States Court the com- missioner in bankruptcy for the State of Indiana. Meanwhile he has devoted both means and time to public improvements, particularly to plank-, gravel-, and railroads centring at Indianapolis, serving for several years as a director of the Central Railway from Richmond to Indianapolis, and subsequently as trustce of the Peru and Indianapolis Railroad. Mr. Sullivan was a well-read elementary lawyer before coming West. On retiring from active pursuits in 1867 he had a large amount of unsettled business, which induced him to be admitted as a practicing attorney in the various courts of Marion County, though he has during later years declined business for other parties. In politics he acted with the Democrats until the passage of the " Kansas-Nebraska Acts," since which time he has voted with the Re- publican party. On the 8th of March, 1835, Mr. Sullivan was married to Miss Clarissa Tomlinson, who was of Scotch and English descent, and resided in Indianapolis. Their children now living are Clara E. (wife of Col. Richard F. May, of Helena, Mon- tana), Flora (wife of E. Wulschner, of Indianapolis), and George R. Sullivan, who married Miss Annie Russell, of Indianapolis, and has one son, Russell. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, though advanced in years, enjoy excellent health and exceptional mental vigor.

In 1865 the Criminal Circuit Court of Marion County was created to relieve the original court of a class of business that consumed a great deal of time, obstructed important interests, and largely increased the cost of maintaining the court to the county and the costs of litigation to parties. A separate court would hasten the dispatch of business of all kinds, and be a money-saving as well as trouble-saving measure. The Criminal Court, however, was not separated so completely from the parent court as was that of the Commnon Pleas in 1849. It was separate

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only in its duties and its judges. The county clerk had charge of its papers and records, and the county sheriff served it as he did the old Circuit Court and the Common Pleas Court. These three, the Cireuit, the Common Pleas, and the Criminal Court, con- sitituted the judicial force of the county from 1865 to 1873, when the Common Pleas was reabsorbed into the Circuit Court. The Criminal Court continues, with a little modifieation since its original establish- ment, with a series of accomplished and efficient judges, as will be seen from the list appended to this work. The member of the city bar who is probably the best known as an advocate in the Criminal Court, though his praetice is by no means confined to that class of business, is Jonathan W. Gordon.

HON. JONATHAN W. GORDON was born Ang. 13, 1820. His father, William Gordon, was an Irish laborer, who emigrated to the United States in 1789- 90, and settled in Washington County, Pa., where, Aug. 18, 1795, he married Sarah Wallon, a native of Greenbrier County, Va., by whom he had fourteen children, of which the subject of this biography is the thirteenth. The father removed from Pennsyl- vania to Indiana in the spring of 1835, and settled in Ripley County, where he resided until his death, Jan. 20, 1841. His wife survived him until May 29, 1857, when she died at the residenee of her youngest daughter, Mrs. Charlotte T. Kelley.

In the mean time the subject of this sketch mar- ried Miss Catharine J. Overturf, April 3, 1843; entered upon the profession of the law Feb. 27, 1844 ; went to Mexico, June 9, 1846, as a volunteer in the Third Regiment of Indiana Volunteers; lost his health in the service, and upon his return aban- doned the law and studied medicine on account of hemorrhage of the lungs; was graduated as M.D. from Asbury University in 1851, and resumed the practice of the law at Indianapolis in 1852. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1854; member of the House of Representatives in the General As- sembly in 1856, and again in 1858; and during the latter term was twice ehosen Speaker.

In 1859 he was nominated by many members of the bar, without distinction of party, for the office of Common Pleas judge, made vacant by the death

of Hon. David Wallace; but, finding that some aspirants for the position desired a party contest, he declined the raee, holding that the judicial office ought to be kept clear of party politics. In 1860 he took an active part in behalf of Mr. Lincoln, to whose nomination he had largely contributed by de- feating an instruction of the Indiana delegation for Edward Bates. His speech against Mr. Bates was published, and though effective for the purpose for which it was delivered, was searcely less so to prevent his own appointment to any civil position under Mr. Lincoln. In 1861 he was chosen clerk of the House of Representatives, but resigned the position for a place in the ranks of the army upon the outbreak of the war. He served during the three months' ser- vice in the Ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and received from the President during the time the appointment of major in the Eleventh United States Infantry. He accepted the position and served in garrison duty until March 4, 1864, when he resigned ; and, returning to Indianapolis, resnmed the practice of the law. He united with those represented in the Cleveland Convention of that year in the support of Gen. Fremont, but when he ceased to be a candidate, supported Mr. Lincoln. He made two political speeches during the contest, taking strong ground against public corruption, and the exercise of all un- authorized power. In the fall of the year he defended those citizens of the State who were ar- raigned and tried before military commissions, and maintained the want of any jurisdiction on the part of such commissions to try a citizen of a State not involved in actual war. His argument was printed and largely circulated at the time, and it is believed that little was added to it by any subsequent diseus- sions. He opposed not so much the impeachment of President Johnson, as the heated and partisan manner in which the Republican party tried to make it effective. This he opposed with zeal and enthn- siasm from first to last, and when it failed in the vote on the eleventh article, congratulated the coun- try on its failure.

He supported Gen. Grant in 1868, and in the course of the eanvass delivered one of his ablest speeches in defense of the constitutionality of the

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measures of Congress for the reconstruction of gov- ernments in the seceding States. In the spring of 1869 he suffered a great loss in the burning of his house and the greater part of his library. This loss he has never been able to repair, and his preparation in many a great controversy since has limped be- cause of it. In 1872 he again supported Grant; was placed at the head of his electoral ticket in the State, and being elected was chosen by his colleagues president of the electoral college. In his speech upon taking the chair, he endeavored to ameliorate the asperity of party feeling and spirit by a generous tribute to the great journalist who had been sup- ported by the opponents of the President. His party nominated him in 1876 for the office of attorney-gen- eral of the State, but as the party was defeated that year in the State, he went down with the rest. In 1868 he ran for and was elected to the House of Representatives in the General Assembly. His can- vass was regarded as indiscreet and audacious by many of his more prudent friends. Under the leader- ship of its most prominent leader, the Republican party of the State was decply poisoned with the greenback virus. He knew this as well as others ; but believing that it was altogether more important that sound views on the subject of the eurreney should be presented to the people than that he should be elected to the Legislature, he exposed and ridieuled the fallacies of the greenbackers without stint or mercy. His defeat was confidently predicted by many prominent men of his own party ; but at the elose of the election it was found that just views are understood and appreciated by the people, for he ran as well as his associates on the ticket. In the Legislature he devoted his labors and time to the amendment of the criminal law, so as to secure eon- viction of the guilty in many cases where it was be- fore next to impossible. His labors were defeated for want of time to earry them through. He did succeed, however, in limiting the power of courts to punish for contempt, a thing hitherto neglected in the State.

Having lost his first wife, he married Miss Julia L. Dumont, March 13, 1862. He has had six chil- dren, five by his first, and one by his last wife.

He has followed his profession with a fair degrec -of success, bestowing great labor upon such new questions as have from time to time arisen in the course of his praetice. · In several instances he has, it is believed, given a permanent bent to the law as decided by the highest tribunal of the State ; but has in others failed where he believed, and still believes, that he was right. In such cases he finds consolation in the faith that just principles do finally triumph, and that his defeats are not final. He has not been satisfied to be merely a lawyer, but has taken a general view of literature and philosophy. Smitten with the love of poetry, he has sometimes mistaken it for the impulsions of genius, and essayed to sing. Some of his fugitive pieces have met with popular favor, and others with neglect. In this way he has been preserved from surrendering himself to the muses by the dead level of appreciation. He is not likely now to be spoiled by the passion for literary success. His last published poem shall end this sketch.

THIE OPEN GATE.

I stand far down upon a shaded slope, And near the valley of a silent river,

Whose tideless waters darklieg, stagnant mope, Through climes beyond the flight of earthward bope, Forever and forever.

No sail is seen upon the sullen stream, No breath of air to make it crisp or quiver,

Nor sun, nor star to shed the faintest gleam To cheer its gloom ; but as the Styx, we deem, It creeps through might forever.

An open gate invites my bleeding feot, And all life's forces whisper, " We are weary ;

Pass on and out, thou eaast no more repeat The golden dreams of youth : and rest is sweet, And darkness is not dreary.

" Pass on and out; the way is plain and straight, And countless millions have gone out before thee; What shouldst thou fear, since men of every stato, And clime, and time have found the open gate, The gate of death or glory.

" Then fearless pass down to the silent shore, And look not haok with aught like vain regretting ;

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 32

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942