History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 44

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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On his recovery Mr. Douglass removed to Madi- son, where, in connection with Mr. William Carpen- ter, he published a paper. The capital of the State, however, offered him greater inducements, and he settled in Corydon. He was elected State printer, and with the change of the seat of government re- moved to Indianapolis. This last removal was effected in the fall of 1824, in connection with the State treasurer, Samuel Merrill.

Mr. Douglass connected himself with Douglass Maguire by buying Mr. Gregg's interest in the

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Western Censor and Emigrant's Guide. The paper was shortly after called The Indiana Journal. Mr. Douglass remained connected with it until February, 1843, much of the time sole editor or sole publisher. Under his care the Journal was modest and pure in tone, firm in principle, supporting good enterprises, and disseminating valuable information. Mr. Doug- lass united himself with the Second Presbyterian Church, under the ministry of the Rev. Henry W. Beecher, and in life and in death was a trusting and earnest believer in Christ.

The Presidential campaign of 1840, through care- lessness and neglect of pecuniary obligations on the part of its managers in Indiana, involved Mr. Doug- lass in painful embarrassment. Industrious as he was, and upright to a serupulous degree, he could not tolerate the thought of an unpaid debt with which his name, though by no fault of his own, was connected.

The loss of a promising son at the age of sixteen, and of a beloved and beautiful daughter at the age of twenty-two, broke irrecoverably both his health and his spirits. During the last two years of his life he was the object of the deepest and tenderest solicitude on the part of his friends.

Mrs. Douglass survived her husband twenty years, retaining to the last sprightliness of youth joined to the calm sedateness of age.

" The sweet remembrance of the just Shall flourish when they sleep in dust."

The children that survived their parents are Lydia (Mrs. Alfred Harrison), Ellen B., Samuel M. (who died some years ago), James G., and George W. Mrs. William Barkley is a grandchild, the daughter of the eldest son, William, who died in California.

Closely associated with Mr. Douglass before his removal to Indianapolis was the late David V. Culley, who worked with him on State work in Corydon, subsequently removed to Laurenceburg and pub- lished the Indiana Palladium, and removed to Indianapolis in 1836 permanently, on receiving from Gen. Jackson, whom he had always ardently sup- ported, the office of register of the land office of the Indianapolis district. He lived to be one of the

most honored and trusted of the citizens of the capital.

D. V. CULLEY .- Among the men who cast their lot in Indianapolis while it was a struggling village and faintly foreshadowed its present population and commercial importance, the name of Hon. David V. Culley stands pre-eminent as one whose work has done much to create the history of the city. He was a true- hearted Christian gentleman of more than ordinary stability of character, sound judgment, aud prudence, and therefore a good business man, as was evinced by the accumulation of a good property from no begin- ning other than industry and economy. His careful management of his own affairs, and his solid acquaint- ance with administration, with policy, with finance, recommended him to positions of trust and confi- dence in connection with public matters, and for many years previous to his last illness, which was protracted through several months, those duties oc- cupied much of his time. In his death, which oc- curred on Friday, June 4, 1869, Indianapolis lost one of her very best and foremost men, a man of whom it is easy to run around the circle of his vir- tues and difficult to find a point where the line is not continuous.

David V. Culley was born in Venango County, Pa., near the town of Franklin. His father, John Culley, was of Scotch extraetion, a New Yorker by birth and a carpenter and millwright by trade. His mother, Anne Sleeper, was a woman of liberal edu- cation. Her parents were Philadelphia Quakers, and she held her birthright in the church up to the time of her death. Here in Venango County David V. Culley was reared, receiving from his mother the greater part of all his education. He also acquired at least the rudiments of his trade, type-setting, while still a boy at home. In the year 1818 he with an elder brother came West, and for a time made a home with relatives in Elizabethtown, Ky., where they were subsequently joined by their father's family. While at this place D. V. Culley completed his trade, and in 1823 removed to Corydon, Ind., where he was employed by the late John Douglass, Esq., then State printer, at Corydon, the capital not then having been removed to Indianapolis. Even

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then, at so early an age, his integrity was conspicu- ous. A friend who knew him at that time relates that Samuel Merrill, then treasurer of State, being on a certain occasion compelled to leave home for a. few days, needed a guard for the gold and silver of the commonwealth lying exposed in the treasurer's private residence. Mr. Culley, though at the time scarcely more than a boy and had hardly been a year in the State, was selected, with the friend who nar- rates the incident, to sleep in the treasurer's house and make the public money safe. About 1824 he removed to Lawrenceburg, Ind., which continued to be his residence for twelve years.

In the year 1825 he was married, and the same year was elected to his first office. His wife, Miss Mary A. Brown, was a woman of rare strength and charm of character. She died, full of years and usefulness, on the 11th day of October, 1863, leav- ing three children, one son and two daughters. His first office was that of State senator, which he filled with such marked ability and fidelity that he was nominated by his party in 1831 for Lieutenant-Gover- nor on the unsuccessful ticket when Governor Noble was elected. He continued his work in a political way on the Indiana Palladium, which he and the late Hon. Milton Gregg established. Under their management it was one of the most effective papers in the State, Mr. Culley proving himself at onee a writer and an editor of marked ability. About the year 1834 political differences finally separated them, Mr. Cullcy retaining the Palladium as a Dem- oeratie advocate. During this time he also served two or three sessions in the lower house of the Legis- lature.

It is not unworthy of note in this connection, as an illustration of Mr. Culley's enterprise as a printer, that in the year 1834 he first introduced in this State the use of composition rollers io press-work. A year after this, having a good offer for his paper and printing-office, he disposed of them, and for nearly a year devoted his entire time to the study of the law, which he then proposed to make his profession. At this period, so intense was his application and industry, that he frequently passed the whole night in study.

In 1836, when Martin Van Buren was elected

President, he appointed Mr. Culley register of the land office, and that, together with the frequent floods in Lawrenceburg, decided him to remove his family to Indianapolis for a permanent home. Soon after this he connected himself with the then newly or- ganized Second Presbyterian Church, of which he became and remained a most active, consistent, and efficient member and elder. For twenty years he was clerk of the church, and for a term of years trustce.

The city of Indianapolis was incorporated in 1838, and in 1841, upon the resignation of William Sulli- van, David V. Culley was elected president of the Council, though he had been but five years a resi- dent,-ample proof of the regard in which he was held, as well as of the merit that could so speedily command it. He was re-elected the next year, and the next, and was connected with the city govern- ment from that time until the increased infirmity of health compelled him to decline further service.

On the 20th of March, 1851, he was made the first president of the Indianapolis Gas and Coke Company, and it may well be said that it was through Mr. Culley's untiring energy and perseveranee that gas was manufactured in the city at so early a date. Another example of his enterprise was in bringing stone from Vevay, Ind., over the Madison road, then the only railroad entering Indianapolis, for the pur- pose of putting a stone foundation under his new residence, the first foundation of that kind in the city. But his labors were mainly thrown in the di- rection not of his own so much as the public inter- ests. It was natural that such a man should be a . patron of schools. He had a steady belief in the advantages of an education, and in the value and importance of a thorough classical training. For many years he was connected with the Indianapolis public schools as a trustee and as managing superin- tendent. His persistent labors in that direction will not soon be forgotten, now that the schools have a history and can look back to pioneer days.

. A leading paper, referring to his death, says, " His integrity and sincerity of character, as well as his kindness of heart, were so marked, so well known, that he was often during the period of his active life selected as the guardian for minors, and though

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no duties are more irksome, more easily abused, or more generally thankless, he was never tainted with a breath of suspicion, and never failed to earn the heartiest affection of those he served."

In 1854, Mr. Culley joined what was afterwards known as the Republican party. During the opening horrors of the great civil war he used his pen and gave freely of his means in support of the govern- ment. An ardent lover of his country and a true American, he watched his country's progress with a warm and intelligent sympathy. One of the desires of his heart was to see the completion of the first Pacific Railroad, a work that seemed feasible to him years before its construction was undertaken.

While Mr. Culley seemed habitually logical and serious, and had a dignity of manner that peculiarly fitted him to perform the duties of a presiding officer, no man had a keener sense or heartier appreciation of genuine humor. In his later years a well-thumbed volume of Don Quixote lay on his table along with a copy of Shakespeare and Milton, and many hours were passed in the enjoyment of its quaint drollery. His kindly human sympathy was remarkable, too, in old age. He was often found on the ice among the young skaters, as cheerful as any in the com- pany, and in the summer much time of recrea- tion was passed in rowing, in company with his friends. A day's hunting was often enjoyed ; indeed, the pioneer force and energy never seemed to desert him. But, after all, the strength and beauty of bis life was to be found in his obedience to the Divine law, in his just estimate of his fellow-men, and his kindly feeling toward them. From the distant stand- point in which we measure his character in its full proportions, David V. Culley seems to have had that perfectness, that uprightness of which the Scriptures speak, for the end was peace. He died as he lived, without fear and without reproach.

On the 11th of January, 1825, the Western Censor and Emigrant's Guide was enlarged to a super- royal sheet, and the name changed to the Indiana Journal, which it still retains for the weekly edition, while the daily is the Indianapolis Journal. Mr. Maguire was editor a year or so after the change, and was succeeded in 1826 by Samuel Merrill, State

treasurer, who kept editorial direction till 1829. Mr. Douglass neither then or at any time meddled much with editorial work. He was the business man, and the backbone of the paper, and contented himself with doing only what he knew he could do better than anybody else. In the fall of 1829, Mr. Maguire resumed his connection with the paper, and continued as editor till 1835, when he sold his in- terest to the late S. Vance B. Noel, who took his place as editor. Mr. Noel had then but recently returned from Fort Wayne, where he had assisted Thomas Tigar in establishing the Fort Wayne Senti- nel, though he had previously worked as a printer on the Journal. It may be noted in passing that Gen. Thomas A. Morris, the real victor in the first West Virginia campaign, served an apprenticeship at the case in the Journal office with Mr. Douglass before his appointment as cadet at West Point Academy. Mr. Noel sold out to Mr. Douglass in 1842, and the latter took Theodore J. Barnett as editor, a man of unusual ability, and quite as effective a speaker as he was a writer. He figured as promi- nently on the stump in the Presidential contest of 1844 as any Whig orator in the State, and he was incessantly busy with his pen when he gave his tongue a rest. His partisan zeal readily took an aspect of personal enmity, and he and the Chap- mans quarreled through their respective papers in a way that ill became the standing of either, and once Barnett drew a pistol on Page Chapmam in the post-office, where Bowen & Stuart's bookstore is now. This personal malice magnified a little innocent affair into a felony by Mr. Barnett, and harassed him seriously at times .. One Saturday evening he could not find Mr. Noel, and wanted a pound of butter to take home. He wrote an order for it on the grocer in Mr. Noel's name, as he was authorized to do in such a strait, and got the butter. The Sentinel learned that he had signed Mr. Noel's name to the order and charged him with forgery. There was no semblance of' forgery or imitation of handwriting to create a deception, but a mere formal note or memo- randum for the grocer to make up his account from, duly authorized by Mr. Noel. For two years that " pound of butter" and "forged order" made as

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prominent a feature of local politics as the tariff did of national politics. There has been a decided im- provement in the tonc of the city press since then, at least in the matter of personal controversies.

Mr. Noel bought Mr. Douglass out entirely in 1843, still retaining Mr. Barnett, and held the establishment till February, 1846. Mr. Douglass never entered into business again after the sale in 1843. Mr. Kent suc- ceeded Mr. Barnett as editor under Mr. Noel's owner- ship, but remained only a few months, when the late John D. Defrees became editor in March, 1845. In February, 1846, he purchased the establishment of Mr. Nocl, and was the proprietor and editor till Oct. 20, 1854. His long connection with the Journal, extending from March, 1845, to October, 1854, has identified him more closely with it than with any other enterprise in which he was concerned, at least among the people of Indianapolis.

HON. JOHN D. DEFREES was born at Sparta, Tenn., Nov. 8, 1810, and was eight years old when his father moved to Piqua, Ohio. In his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to the printer's trade. After serving his time he studied law in the office of Tom. Corwin, at Lebanon, Ohio, and in 1831 removed to South Bend, where with his younger brother he began the publication of a newspaper. He became prominent in politics as a Whig, and was several times elected to the Legislature. In 1844 he sold his South Bend newspaper to Schuyler Colfax, whom he had given a start in life, and removing to Indian- apolis, the next year bought the Indiana State Jour- nul, which he for ten years edited. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln government printer, and held the office until President Johnson, angered at some criticism of his, removed him. Congress made it a Senate office, and he was reappointed in thirty days. He held it until 1869, when his oppo- sition to Gen. Grant and enmity to the late Senator Morton afforded them an occasion which they im- proved by turning him out. At the coming in of President Hayes he was appointed again to the same' place, which he held until declining health compelled his resignation. This framework of a life seems plain enough, but as every one's skeleton is the same, the difference in appearance being the filling in of

the flesh, so in this life there was a side which to those who knew him best and saw most of it became an inspiration. He was a natural political student and had the gift of political management, and the associates of his early days speak of his rare sagacity and his untiring energy. He was chairman of the State committee, and always the adviser and general conductor of affairs. He could unite two or three antagonisms into a common purpose, and when there were factional or personal differences Mr. Defrees was called on to restore good feeling. He had the keenest sense of humor, which his pluck and ceaseless activity were ever ready to carry into anecdote or practical joke. His energy from his earliest to his latest days was remarkable. His newspaper at South Bend was the first one in northern Indiana, and at every turn of affairs he was seeking some new im- provement. " Progress" seemed to be his watchword. He was the first man in the State to use steam to drive a printing-press, the first to use a caloric engine for the same purpose, the first to see the value of the Bullock printing-press and encourage the inventor, the first to use the metallic stretching machine for binding, and the first to use the Edison electric light, except the inventor. At every step he looked still ahead, and never seemed to doubt the ability or genius of man. This faith, stronger than one meets in a lifetime almost, and utterly free from sordid motives, often made him the victim of design- ing or deluded men. This faith in progress and faith in human kind, and this restless energy which halted at nothing, permeated and colored his whole life. It supplied for himself the deficiencies of early systematic training. What the experience of the printer's trade and the acquisitions of a young law student might give in the way of knowledge were, it may be imagined, of themselves barren enough. But to him these were the keys with which he might unlock learning's storehouse. Books were his delight. He overcame the lack of a classical education by a thorough study of translations, and the lore of Greece and Rome were his familiar acquaintance. He was especially fond of history, and there were few classical works in this line, ancient or modern, he did not know. He was a decp political student, and particu-

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larly knew the political history of his own country as few know it. He was an unwearied student, and thus as the years went on he became equipped with all the mental outfit of a gentleman. He had a cor- rect literary taste, and was as quick to discern genius or special talent here as in other things. He wrote with a perspicuity and with a terse Saxon force rare in these days. Those who were near to him or came in contact with him in the direction of affairs he acted upon with the characteristic qualities of his nature. He left his impress. He was an influence, and many there are who can rise up and call him blessed, in the memory of the chaste and elevating force that influence was. He was a man of the rarest courage-a courage that seemed to have no weak side, mental, moral, or physical. The farthest pos- sible remove from a brawler in his nature, an ac- quaintance with him never failed to make it plain that he would fight on call. This, coupled with the knowledge that he was a "dead-shot" with a rifle, perhaps conspired to make a career among the tur- bulent scenes of politics singularly free from personal disturbances. His mental courage, his never-failing faith in the power of attainment, have already been spoken of. His moral courage, as is shown forth in a life free from dross as few lives are, was rare indeed. He had the loftiest sense of honor, and the hottest anger and bitterest contempt for a dishonorable, dis- honest, or mean thing, and condemnation of such lcaped to bis lips in a moment, for he had all the quickness of the nervous temperament. But so pa- ticutly did he work for its control that in his later life few know from the calm exterior the rage that took hold of him at the sight of a wrong or meanness. His integrity was flawless. He had not merely the heart to mnean rightly, but the head to do rightly, and in his daily walk and conversation he was truth and honesty incarnate. This is the testimony of those who knew him as he lived among them. All his life Mr. Defrees had not been a professor of religion, but if religion is a life he was one of its noblest exemplars. He was twice married, having by his first wife a daughter, Harriet (Mrs. Cyril Oakley, of New Orleans). His second wife was Miss Elizabeth Morris, daughter of Morris Morris, of Indianapolis,

to whom were born children,-Morris M., Lulie, John D. and Anthony C., twins, and Thomas M. The death of Mr. Defrees occurred at Berkeley Springs, W. Va., on the 19th of October, 1882.

Early in the year 1854, Mr. B. R. Sulgrove joined Mr. Defrees in the editorial conduct of the Journal, and in a few days was given the entire direction, Mr. Defrees confining his labors to the business de- partment. Mr. Sulgrove had been a contributor to the Journal frequently during the preceding three or four years, had written a series of sketches of the Constitutional Convention of 1850 for the Loco- motive under the name of " Timothy Tugmutton," had written the leading articles. for the Hoosier City, a little paper published by the apprentices in the Journal office in 1852, and had been associated with J. P. Chapman in the Chanticleer. At that time no press dispatches were received here, the tele- graph reports being cut from the evening papers of Cincinnati when received the same night. No attempt had ever been made to report the next morning the occurrences of the night before. When the Eagle Machine-Works were first burned in 1852, Mr. J. H. MeNeeley, then city editor of the Journal, while re- turning home from the fire, which was early one sum- mer night, stopped at the office, took the forms from the press, removed some indifferent paragraph of news, and set up and inserted a brief notice of the fire. Its appearance next morning was a phenomenon in Indian- apolis journalism. This was reformed under the new administration of the Journal. City Council proceed- ings were reported the same night and published next morning. So were occasional lectures and other enter- tainments. In 1855 the " Old Settlers' Meeting" held on the lawn of Calvin Fletcher's residence, on Virginia Avenue, was reported verbatim-the speeches getting the due allowance of " laughter" and " applause"-to the extent of five columns. It was the first attempt of the kiud, and the revolution in the old-fashioned ways of the local press was an accomplished fact. Thenceforward the morning had to see the night's doings duly reported. During the earlier part of the Crimean war telegraphic press dispatches were re- ceived, but in no such convenient form or attractive abundance as now. John F. Wallick, the present

hora Defices.

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superintendent of the Western Union, received the reports on a long ribbon of paper that he had to haul out of a big box after it had passed along under the Morse marker, and read to a copyist from each of the papers, usually Mr. Eugene Culley for the Sentinel, and Mr. Sulgrove for the Journal. The latter was then alone and had all the work to do, from writing leaders to making up mail items, book reviews, city reports, and copying telegraph. The dispatches were often greatly confused. The yacht of the New York Associated Press would board a steamer off Cape Race, and receive a news summary ready made up to be telegraphed by the land. line to New York and over the West; and it was no unusual thing for a home report to split a foreign one, and leave the frag- ments an hour apart, with a tired editor at midnight to pick up the pieces and patch up an intelligible dis- patch from them. It was not till about 1856 or 1857 that Coleman Wilson received the first reports by sound, and made life a little less burdensome to the overworked editor by supplying manifold copies. In 1856, Mr. Barton D. Jones obtained a portion of the stock and became city editor, a position he held with decided service to the paper and his own reputation till he gave it up to enter the army in 1861. Austin H. Brown was for a time city editor during the war, also Daniel L. Paine, now of the News.

In October, 1854, Mr. Defrces sold the Journal, both the paper and the job-office, to the " Journal Company," consisting of the late Ovid Butler, Joseph M. Tilford, James M. Mathes, and Rawson Vaile. Mr. Mathes had been for some years publishing a religious monthly called the Christian Record in Bloomington, and Mr. Vaile had been publishing a free-soil paper in Wayne County. Mr. Sulgrove retained the editorial control. Mr. Vaile gave his time to the counting-room chiefly. In 1858, Mr. Sulgrove purchased Mr. Butler's interest, and subse- quently a majority of the stock, which he sold, in anticipation of going to Europe, in 1863. But he retained editorial direction till the summer of 1864, having been the chief editor then for more than ten years. On his return from Europe in 1867-he had gone there with Governor Morton in the fall of 1865 -he again took charge of the Journal for some 16

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 44

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