History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 39

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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broken for food. As I looked at the men at work, the expression of despair of the night before lifted from their faces, vividly came to my memory the cool September afternoon twenty-one months before, when I sat drying myself on the partially-built aban- doned abutment on the east bank of White River, looking over into the cheerless river bottom, wonder- ing whether it could be converted into a scene of life and activity, and whether from it could be extracted work and food for hundreds of starving laborers within the next year or two, and almost with faint- ness at my heart looked with more of doubting than hoping, and now it seemed as if God was with His poor, and had not forgotten them."

In the foregoing we have traced John Caven from his childhood, from poverty and obscurity, and, whether toiling in the salt-works, manning an oar on a flat-boat, or delving in a mine, always display- ing the same sturdy zeal to win his way to fortune. We have observed him utilizing every advantage, educating himself, and an carnest, uncompromising devotee of the best theories of life, and animated by ambitions which always lead to usefulness, eminence, and influence. We have seen him steadily advanc- ing in the confidence and esteem of men of wealth, education, and high character, and repeatedly chosen by them as the exponent of their political, business, and social theories, and in every instance responding to every prudent requirement,-dignifying office by making it subserve every interest of society, mapping out new enterprises, and finding new pathways to success. As a worker, in the costume of toil; as a lawyer, mastering the philosophy of jurisprudence ; as a senator, advocating measures of far-reaching consequences; as a chief magistrate of a growing city ; as a man, a citizen, combining personal worth with official authority, calming popular unrest and . giving peace and security in times of peril,-in all of these varied situations of life John Caven has given proof of extraordinary intellectual power, and has won a place in history of commanding promi- nence. As a Mason, Mr. Caven is familiar with all the mysteries of the ancient order, from an entered apprentice to the supreme lights that blaze upon its highest elevations, and his oration, delivered on the

occasion of laying the corner-stone of the Masonic Temple in Indianapolis io 1866, demonstrates the thoroughness of his knowledge of Masonic mysteries and his deep devotion to the principles of the order. Mr. Caven glories in seeing workingmen improving their condition by association, by giving aid to each other in times of need, and the Brotherhoods of Locomotive Engineers and Locomotive Firemen of the United States and Canada venerate him for the sympathy and encouragement he has given them on many occasions.

Such is a brief and necessarily imperfect sketch of the life, character, and public acts of Hon. John Caven, of Indianapolis. Our privileges do not war- rant an entrance upon the domain of his private life. If it were otherwise, our task would be em- bellished by charming pictures of sympathy for the unfortunate and acts of benevolence indicative of a nobility of soul that, after all, is the true standard by which to measure men. Physically, Mayor Caven is a noble specimen of manhood, standing six feet and weighing two hundred and ten pounds. His complexion is florid, eyes blue and of that peculiar type that speaks the universal language of sympathy, benevolence, integrity, and moral courage. Mayor Caven is a bachelor, but not a recluse nor a cynic. He loves home and social enjoyments; and, above all, he is a recognized Christian gentleman, and all of his acts, public and private, bear high testimony that he holds in the highest veneration all sacred things. Time has dealt kindly with Mayor Caven, and now, though on the verge of threescore years, he bids fair for many years to come to be the centre of an extended circle of appreciative citizens, whose confidence and esteem is the crowning glory of a life well spent.

The county attorney, William Watson Woollen, is also a product of home study, and his success is a credit alike to him and his native city.

WILLIAM WATSON WOOLLEN .- The Woollen family are of English lineage. Leonard Woollen, the grandfather of William Watson, was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, but early removed to Kentucky, and thence, in 1828, to Indianapolis. The birth of his son Milton occurred in Kentucky,

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in 1806. After the removal to Indianapolis he was married to Miss Sarah, daughter of Joshua Black, a pioneer of 1826 .. By this marriage there were a number of children, the eldest of whom was Wil- liam Watson, the subject of this biographical sketch, born on the 28th of May, 1838, in Indianapolis. His youth, until the age of eighteen, was spent on a farm in Lawrence township. Being the eldest son, his services early became valuable to his father, and as a consequence very limited advantages of educa- tion were enjoyed until his removal, in 1856, to In- dianapolis, where he became a student of the North- western Christian University. Having determined upon the law as a profession, he entered the law department of that institution, and at the same time studied in the office of Messrs. Gordon & Connor. He graduated from the law school, and was admitted to the bar in October, 1859. The following winter was spent in teaching, and in April, 1860, his name was added to the roll of practitioners in the capital city of the State. On the 5th of February, 1863, Mr. Woollen married Miss Mary A. Evans, of Indi- anapolis. He was in October, 1864, elected district attorney of the Common Pleas Court for Marion, Hendricks, and Boone Counties, and re-elected in 1866 without opposition. In December, 1881, he was chosen by the board of commissioners of Marion County attorney for the corporation, and reappointed in 1882 and 1883. Extravagant abuses which had crept into the public service Mr. Woollen attacked with courage and success. He was one of the organ- izers of the Indianapolis Bar Association, which, in its library and other advantages, has proved an inval- uable aid to the attorneys of the city.

Mr. Woollen is a supporter of the principles of the Republican party, but not a strong political partisan. He was reared in the faith of the Baptist Church, and was formerly a member of the First Baptist Church of Indianapolis, from which, with others, he withdrew for the purpose of. projecting and organizing the North Baptist Church, of which he is at present a member.

Mr. Woollen early demonstrated that he was en- dowed with a capacity and force well fitted to his work. His thorough knowledge of the law and log-

ical mind enabled him speedily to take his place among the successful lawyers of the metropolis. A manifest candor and scrupulous integrity mark all his professional relations. He never encourages useless litigation nor deceives a client who has no grounds upon which to rest his case. This conscientious dealing has won general confidence and gained for him a lucrative practice.

Although there are three medical colleges in the city, and at one time or another have been two or three that lived a few years, there has never been but one law school here, and that seems to have gone out recently. In 1857 a law school was opened in connection with the Northwestern Christian Univer- sity, of which the late Judge Perkins was the chief teacher. In 1870-71 a law department was formed in the same institution, with Judge Byron K. Elliott, now of the Supreme Bench, Charles P. Jacobs, and Judge Charles H. Test as professors. When the university was removed to Irvington the law school was continued in the city, Professors Jacobs and Elliott continuing with it until within a year or so.

There were two hundred and fifty-seven lawyers in the city in 1883. The profession, like merchan- dising, has separated itself into classes, not definitely, but with a much less miscellaneous association than once prevailed. In a few years we shall have dis- tinctively criminal lawyers, and patent lawyers, and real-estate lawyers, and claims lawyers, as we now have the germs with a pretty plain development here and there. It is the tendency of growth and im- provement to limit fields of labor and work with more elaborate care on fewer subjects, and the legal profession will some time obey the irresistible law, and make division of its labor as laborers do. A bar association manual has existed here for a number of years.

The members of both the bench and bar of Indian- apolis and the State of Indiana have deservedly taken high rank in the legal profession of not only this State but of the whole country. In the chronological list of its members will be found men whose history is a part of the history of the United States, and whose names will be handed down to posterity as giants of the law in " Ye olden time."

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CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

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WILLIAM QUARLES was accounted one of the first criminal lawyers of the State, and especially success- ful in the cross-examination and bewilderment of adverse witnesses. His death followed close on his exertions in defense of Merritt Young for killing Israel Phillips about 1852. Though a fluent speaker, he was not an orator, and succeeded by dint of in- cessant use, in every possible form and connection, of one or two strong points. He drove them into a . jury by so much hammering that no amount of refutory logic or apppcal could displace them. His son John, at one time one of the best debaters of the old Union Literary Society, was the superior of his father, and if he had lived would have stood among the foremost lawyers of the nation unless thwarted by his own self-indulgence. He was killed two or three years after his father's death by falling down the stairway at College Hall and striking his head against either the raised stone sill of the stairway- door or the stone curb of the pavement, though there were rumors at the time of violence resulting from a quarrel. Mr. Quarles, the father, was brother- in-law of the late Thomas D. and Robert L. Walpole, both noted and successful lawyers both in civil and criminal business. They were Kentuckians, and sons of Luke Walpole, one of the first merchants of the city. Thomas was a prominent politician of the Clay school till 1844, when he went over to the Democracy. Robert was a Democratic candidate for Congress near the time of the breaking out of the war.

HUGH O'NEAL, who was both county prosecutor and United States attorney, and one of the first and ablest members of the Indianapolis bar of any period, was raised in Marion County, educated at Bloomington as one of the two students to which each county was entitled, studied law in this city, and was admitted to the bar about 1840. He soon made himself conspicuous as a Whig orator, and was one of the most efficient of the party champions from the campaign of 1844 to that of 1852. After that till his death he concerned himself little with polities. He went to California soon after the gold discovery, and did well there, but not so well as to prevent his return in a couple of years or so. Ile resumed the |

practice of the law here, living in his office,-he was never married,-and died there, in the second-story room next to Fletcher's Bank, during the war. For some years he and the late Governor Abram A. Ham- mond were partners, and made the most formidable firm of the city of that timo except Smith & Yandes and Barbour & Porter.

LUCIAN BARBOUR was a Connecticut man, born in 1811, graduated at Amherst, in 1837, and came West to Madison, in this State, where he studied law. He came to Indianapolis about 1840, or a little later, and soon formed a partnership with the late Judge Wiek, in connection with whom he prepared a little treatise on business law and forms, known for years in the profession as "Wick & Barbour." Later he and Governor Porter formed a partnership which was maintained till Mr. Barbour went to Con- gress in 1855 or later. In 1851 he was one of the commissioners appointed by the Legislature to revise the statutes and simplify the pleadings and proceed- ings of court, as the new constitution required. The lawyers used to call this the "Carr code," from George W. Carr, one of the commissioners, who had been president of the Constitutional Convention, a sensible, good man, but no lawyer, and not a strik- ingly judicious selection for that service. Mr. Bar- bour, always a Democrat till the Kansas-Nebraska question came up to disrupt parties, shifted to the anti-slavery side in 1854 and was elected to Congress, where, after onc term, he was succceded by Mr.

. Gregg, a Democrat of Hendrieks County, and then for two terms by his old law-partner, Governor Porter. While in partnership with Mr. Wick he married Mrs. Wick's sister, Alice, and thus 'became the brother-in-law of the late Lazarus B. Wilson as well as his law-partner. Mr. Barbour in the last years of his life had associated with him the versatile and widely-read Charles P. Jacobs.

HORATIO C. NEWCOMB is entitled to all respect as one of the best lawyers, ablest publicists, and truest men that ever honored Indianapolis with a residence. He was born in Tioga County, Pa., in 1821, was removed by his parents when a child to Cortland County, N. Y., and thence to Jennings County, in this State, in 1836. He learned the sad-

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dler's trade there, as did Judge Martindale and Senator MeDonald in their outset of life, but in two or three years ill-health compelled him to quit it, and in 1841 he began the study of the law with Mr. Bullock, the first lawyer in Jennings County. He practiced there till 1846, when he came to Indian- apolis and formed a partnership with Mr. Ovid Butler. The impression made by his abilities may be judged by the fact that in 1849 he was elected the second mayor of the city in his twenty-eighth year. In 1854 he was elected to the Legislature, and in 1860 was elected to the Senate, which he left after one session to take the presidency of the'Sink- ing Fund Board. He was superseded there in 1863 by the late W. H. Talbott. In the summer of 1864, after the retirement of Mr. Sulgrove, he became po- litical editor of the Journal, and so continued till 1868, serving two sessions in the Legislature in that time. He went back to the law practice in 1869, and continued till he was appointed one of the first three judges of the Superior Court in March, 1871. This term expired in 1874, when he was elected to the same place by a popular and unanimous vote, being put on both party tickets, as was Judge Per- kins, his associate, who had succeeded Judge Rand on the resignation of the latter. Soon after Presi- dent Grant tendered him the assistant Secretaryship of the Interior, but he declined it. In 1876 he was nominated by the Republicans for the Supreme Bench, but beaten. Under the act authorizing com- inissioners of the Supreme Court to assist the judges in clearing off the accumulations of the docket, he was made one, and died while in that duty. He was all his life here a constant and devoted member of the Presbyterian Church, and one of the ruling elders. As editor of the Journal he showed a ver- satility of power with which he had not been eredited, as well as a sagacity and sound judgment in party management that were badly needed to supplement the efforts of Governor Morton. He died in May, 1882, at his residence on North Tennessee Street.

JOHN H. BRADLEY .- Although chiefly occupied with his business as banker and railroad operator after his removal to this city, the late John H. Bradley sometimes figured in the old court-house with such

effeet of eloquence and legal erudition as was rarely equaled by any of his associates. He was a member of the Legislature from Laporte County in 1842, and formed one of the noted quartette of that year,-he and Joseph G. Marshall, of the Whigs, Edward A. Hannegan and Thomas J. Henley, of the Democrats. Mr. Bradley retired from active business for several years before his death, and wrote a small treatise on the evidences and philosophy of spiritualism. Dr. John M. Kitchen and Morris Defrees are sons-in-law of Mr. Bradley.

WILLIAM WALLACE .- Among the living members of the bar are several who still hold foremost places in the profession, though some, as Simon Yandes, Esq., and Governor Porter, have retired, and are engaged in other pursuits. William Wallace, one of those who have been longest at the bar of the city and are still as active and conspicuous as ever, was born in Brookville, Oet. 16, 1825. He came to the capital when his father had to take up his official residence here as Governor in 1837, and has remained ever since. He went to school here first to Mr. (now Gen.) Gilman Marston, and later to Rev. James S. Kemper, at the old seminary. He oseillated for some time between schooling and clerk- ing, finally settling down to studying law and work- ing in the office of the county clerk, then Robert B. Duncan. When the latter left that office in 1850 Mr. Wallace began the practice of the law, and has continued ever since, except during one term in the office of county clerk, from 1861 to 1865, beating Michael Fitzgibbon. His business has been of a quiet kind, not so well calculated to exhibit the striking oratorical talent which put him at the head of the old seminary boys, at the criminal and litigated civil business in which his father shone so brilliantly, but it has made him one of the foremost and most re- speeted of the lawyers of the capital, and put him in many positions of responsibility in private affairs. His native eloquence has uot been allowed to rust in probate business, however. He is one of the fore- most Odd-Fellows of the State, and has more than occupation enough in making addresses for the order on formal or conspicuous occasions. No man in the city stands higher or by a better title of native gen-

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erosity and manliness and unspotted honor than William Wallace.

GEN. JOHN COBURN, whose life, however, presents a striking contrast of variety and incessant activity to the unvarying smoothness of the other's, is an old schoolmate and life-long friend of William Wallace. He was born in this city, Oct. 27, 1825, very soon after the removal of his father, the late Henry P. Coburn, clerk of the Supreme Court from 1820 to 1852, from Corydon to the new capital. His early education was chiefly acquired at the old seminary, whence he went to Wabash College in 1842, graduating in 1846. He served as deputy to his father and studied law till 1849, when he was admitted to the bar, practicing for some years as the partner of Judge N. B. Taylor, and later of Governor Wallaec. On the death of the latter while occupying the bench of the Common Pleas Court, Mr. Coburn was appointed to the vacaney, and eleeted the year following. On the 18th of September he was com- missioned colonel of the Thirty-third Regiment, hold- ing the command steadily till he was mustered out, Sept. 20, 1864. The next year he was brevetted brigadier-general. The first experience of his regi- ment was a rough one. It left this city on the 28th of September, 1861, and on the 21st of October was fighting Gen. Zollicoffer at Wild Cat, Ky., where that distinguished rebel was killed, and our Hoosier colonel exhibited the coolness and commanding force that were needed for a serviceable and honorable mil- itary career. After this it was stationed at Crab Orehard, Ky., until early in January, and full two- thirds of the men were down with the measles. After this Col. Coburn was in and about Cumberland Gap for a long time, but carly in 1863 was sent to Nash- ville, and thence to Franklin, Tenn., where, during an engagement into which he was forced by the im- prudence of a temporary superior, some four hundred of his men and himself were taken prisoners. The men were paroled, but he was taken to Libby, and was there at the time a Union force gave the eity of Richmond a considerable fright. His life there was that of hundreds of others with which the country is familiar. In the Atlanta campaign his regiment was one of the foremost, and he was the |

officer deputed by the commander to receive the surrender of the eity. In October, 1865, he was elected to the Circuit Court Bench, but resigned to go to Congress in 1866. He served four terms in Congress with a record of as good service and hard work as any man in the body, and with as high consideration from his fellow-members. He was chairman of the Military Committee, one of the most important in the House at that time, and, besides the unknown work of legislation, illustrated his congres- sional career by speeches of unusual force of style and familiarity with his subjects. He never spoke for buncombe or to have a little exhibit of his services to frank to his constituents, but because he knew . something on the subject that needed to be told and a good many needed to learn. So strong an impres- sion had he made that on the resignation of Secretary Belknap he was urged for the War Department. It is a pity he hadn't got it; we have had no such man since. On the expiration of his congressional term Gen. Coburn accepted an appointment as one of the commissioners to settle the complicated disputes about the titles of land in Hot Springs, Ark. This work he completed but a year or two ago. Since then he has been constantly engaged in his profession.

NAPOLEON B. TAYLOR was born October 18, 1820, in Campbell County, Ky., and came to this place a child with his father, the late Robert Taylor, one the carliest of our brick-masons. He, like his old friends Wallace and Coburn, was an "old seminary boy," leaving the school to study law about 1842 or 1843. For some time after his admission to the bar he mixed bricklaying with law to have some- thing to do and make something to live, but in 1849 he formed a partnership with the late John L. Ketch- am, and since then has confined himself to the law. He worked his way up slowly, but he never got a foot ahead and slipped baek two. What he made he held, and in a few years he came to be known over the State as peculiarly skillful and able in the prepa- ration of cases for the Supreme Court. That reputa- tion he has kept and inereased ever since. In 1853 he and Gen. Coburn formed a partnership for about three years. In 1872 he formed a partnership with his son Edwin and Judge Rand, one of the first

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judges of the Superior Court, which was maintained till Judge Taylor's election to the Superior Bench in 1882. In 1864 he was nominated for reporter of the Supreme Court against Gen. Ben. Harrison and beaten, and he was frequently talked of for the nomination for the Supreme Bench. He stands among the first law- yers of the State for erudition and sound judgment, and among the first citizens of Indianapolis for all the qualities of good citizenship.

BYRON K. ELLIOTT, judge of the Supreme Court from the central district of the State, was born in Butler County, Ohio, Sept. 4, 1835, lived in Hamil- ton till 1849, then removed to Cincinnati, and on the 21st of December, 1850, to this city. He studied law here, and was admitted to the bar in February, 1858, and in May, 1859, was elected city attorney,-a most creditable proof of ability and character to command such a place in the first year of professional life, and at the early age of twenty-four. He went into the hundred days' service in May, 1864, in Col. Vance's One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment, as captain, but was put upon Gen. Milroy's staff in two or three weeks as assistant adjutant-general. On his return to the law he was elected city attorney again in May, 1865, and re-elected in 1867 and 1869. His four terms in that office enabled him to make it a position of importance, worth a good law- yer's tenure and attention, and it had been a mere party makeweight previously. In October, 1870, he was elected judge of the Criminal Court, and resigned the office of city attorney. In November, 1872, he resigned the judgeship to take the city solicitorship unanimously tendered him by the Coun- cil. He was elected city attorney again in May, 1873, and in October, 1876, one of the judges of the Superior Court. He was again nominated for the place by acclamation in March, 1880, but re- ceiving the Republican nomination for Supreme judge in June of the same year, he accepted that and was elected in the following October. He was made chief justice at the November term, 1881, and served through that term. In and out of the pro- fession he is regarded as one of the purest, fairest, and most clear-sighted judges that have occupied the appellate bench in this generation, and in no rulings

is greater or more general confidence felt than in his.

FABIUS M. FINCH was born in Western New York in 1811, and came to Ohio in 1816, with his father, Judge John Finch, and from Ohio came to this county in 1819, being the first family in the New Purchase, except possibly the Whetzels, at the Bluffs. The settlement was made near Noblesville, which for some time was made a part of Marion County. Several families came with the Finches. In 1828 the future judge came to this place and studied law with Judge Wick, whose first wife was his sister. He was admitted to the bar in 1831, at the age of twenty, showing unusual maturity of in- tellect, and settled at Franklin, Johnson Co., where he remained till 1865, when he removed perma- nently to this city. He was elected judge of the Fifth Circuit in 1842 by the Legislature, and in 1859 was elected to the judgeship of this circuit by the people, serving one term. For some years he and his son, John A., have confined their business largely to insurance cases, and have made a very high repu- tation in that branch of the profession. John A. was the State commissioner at a national meeting of insurance men in New York some years ago, and has published several elaborate articles on insurance organizations, methods, and law, which have attracted wide attention and commendation.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 39

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