History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 54

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

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 54

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1855, as noted in the sketch of the history of. the press, Dr. John C. Walker was one of the pro- prietors and editors of the Sentinel. He remained in the city much of the time till 1862 or 1863, when his political views and conduct suggested a temporary residence abroad. He was elected State printer in 1859. Returning some few years ago, he practiced his profession in the city till he received an impor- tant position in the Insane Asylum, where he re- mained till his death last year.

HON. JOHN C. WALKER, M.D .- The Walkers were of Scotch-Irish stock, and emigrated to Penn- sylvania early in the seventeenth century. Benjamin Walker, a veteran soldier of the Revolution, at the close of the war returned to his home, on the Susque-

hanna, near Harrisburg. In some trouble with the Indians his father was captured, murdered, and, it was said, burned at the stake. Peace having been restored, a band of Indians encamped near the town, and one night two of them were overheard by Benja- min Walker relating the circumstance of the murder of his father. When the Indians departed he and his brother followed, overtook them, and after a des- perate encounter killed both. The fight began near a high bank overlooking the river, Benjamin and his adversary rolling into the water below, where he suc- ceeded in drowning the latter. This affair having occurred in time of peace, Benjamin Walker was out- lawed by proclamation of the Governor, and with his wife (a Miss Crawford) and several small children embarked in canoes ou the Ohio River and ultimately reached Dearborn County, Ind. He secured prop- erty, established a saw- and later a grist-mill. At his home, on Laughery Creek, he was frequently visited by Daniel Boone, the celebrated hunter. He reared a large family of children, among whom was John C. Walker, a prominent citizen and member of the State Senate, who married Frances Allen, of Virginia, and resided for a period of years at Shelbyville, Ind. He was a large contractor in the building of the Michigan pike road, and with the land-scrip in which the contractors were paid purchased large tracts in La Porte and adjoining counties. At one time he was said to be the largest land-owner in the State.

He was an incorporator, with John Hendricks, of Shelbyville, George H. Dunn, and John Test, of Law- renceburg, and others, of the first railroad built in Indiana, the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis, char- tered Feb. 2, 1832. A condition of the charter was that the work should be under way within three years. The difficulties and delays incident to so great an enterprise at that early day seemed to threaten a forfeiture of the charter, to avert which John C. Walker threw up a grade, laid ties, and put down rails of hewn timber for a mile and a quarter from Shelbyville, and with a wooden car drawn by horses opened the road for passenger travel on the 4th of July, 1834. " Walker's Railroad" is still remembered by many old citizens.

He removed with his family to La Porte, Ind., in

John b. Walter.

295

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

1836, and died ten years later. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Walker were William, James (de- ceased), and Benjamin, of Chicago; Mrs. McCoy, of California ; Mrs. Cummins and Mrs. Holcombe, of Indianapolis ; Mrs. Teal (deceased), of Shelbyville, Ind .; Mrs. Ludlow and Mrs. Garland Rose (both deceased), of La Porte, Ind .; and the subject of this sketch, Dr. John C. Walker, who was born in Shelbyville, Ind., on the 11th of February, 1828. He was educated by his brother-in-law, Professor F. P. Cummins, an eminent teacher and minister. He possessed a strong and active intellect, was a good student and diligent reader, and, though his regular studies were interrupted by an injury to his eyes, he acquired a large store of information and varied accomplishments.

Early in his career he purchased the La Porte Times, which, as editor and proprietor, he made the most influential paper in Northern Indiana. It was the first paper in the State, perhaps in the country, to antagonize the methods and dogmas of the Know- Nothing party, then becoming powerful for evil. Its editor was soon recognized as a man of mark. He was elected to the Legislature of 1853, and took a high rank in that body. One of his reports was pub- lished in full by State Superintendent Larrabee in his edition of the school laws, with the following intro- ductory note : " In order to explain in the best man- ner possible the act of March 4, 1853, amending the school law, I would call attention to the following clear, concise, and beautiful report made to the House of Representatives by Mr. John C. Walker, of La Porte, chairman of the Committee on Education." He was then twenty-three years of age. In March, 1855, he purchased, with Charles Cottom, now of the New Albany Ledger, the Indianapolis Sentinel, which he edited for nearly a year, making it, though at a heavy loss financially, a powerful party organ. In 1856 he was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor on the ticket with the eloquent Willard, but being under the constitutional age he was obliged to with- draw. A. A. Hammond, who was substituted in his place, became Governor of Indiana by the untimely death of Governor Willard. Resuming control of the La Porte Times, he was chosen by his party, in

1858, to make the race for Congress against Schuyler Colfax, then editor of the South Bend Tribune. This contest resulting unfavorably, he began prepar- ing for the notable campaign of 1860, in which he played a distinguished and honorable part, support- ing with vigor and success, and against powerful opponents, the Douglas wing of the party.

Col. John C. Walker was a War Democrat, and took the first opportunity to enter the service of the Union. He was elected to command the Thirty-fifth Indiana Volunteers by the captains of the regiment in the fall of 1861, and with it went to the field early in the winter thereafter. For a while he was stationed near Bardstown, Ky., where he soon estab- lished a high character among his brother-officers and the people of that town and neighborhood. He was, while there, and as early as Jan. 17, 1862, a member of a board for the examination of officers touching their qualifications and fitness for the service, and in that capacity cvinced a large knowledge of tactics and the details of the military art. He displayed great ability as a drill-officer and disciplinarian, and brought his regiment rapidly to a high state of efficiency in all soldierly qualities. From Bardstown he was ordered farther South, and in the spring and summer of 1862 was employed constantly in active service in Tennessee, marching over much of that great State. His last service was performed without orders from any supe- rior, but under the highest instincts and most chival- ric sense of soldicrly honor, in marching with his regiment forty miles to Murfreesborough when that place was about to be attacked. For this gallant act he "received the formal and written approval of Gen. Buell." He was soon after stricken down with typhoid fever, and his health, never very robust, required relaxation and rest. His commanding officer, under these circumstances, gave him leave to return to In- diana. He did so, and while at his home, at La Porte, Governor Morton, without the slightest intimation of any fault in his career as an officer or offense at his presence at home, procured his dismissal or discharge from the army. Not for disloyalty, not for incompe- tence, not for cowardice was this done. He was the very beau ideal of a soldier, and a thousand men per- haps yet live in Indiana who can say that no Bayard

Samuel. HEGunghez

297

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

SAMUEL MCGAUGHEY, M.D .- David McGaughey, the grandfather of the doctor, was of Scotch-Irish descent, though a native of Scotland. He married a Miss Litle, and had five daughters and four sons, among whom was Robert L., the father of the subject of this biography. He married Mary Ann, daughter of Ezekiel Clark, to whom were born six sons and six daughters. The birth of Samuel, the third son, occurred July 22, 1828, in Franklin County, Ind., where his life until his eighteenth year was passed in the improvement of such educational advantages as the vicinity afforded. After a brief period of teach- ing, finding his tastes in harmony with an active pro- fessional career, he began the study of medicine with Dr. D. S. McGanghey, of Morristown, Shelby Co., Ind., under whose preceptorship he continued for three years. During this time he attended three courses of lectures at the Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati, from which institution he graduated in 1851. His first field of labor was at Palestine, Hancock Co., Ind., where he located the following year. He sub- sequently spent two years in Marietta, Shelby Co., and in May, 1856, made Acton, Marion Co., his resi- dence. He at once engaged in practice of a general character, which steadily increased until it became extensive and laborious. He was for a brief period associated with Dr. P. C. Leavitt, a very successful practitioner, who served with credit in the army, and on his return resumed his practice, which was con- tinucd until his death.

· Dr. McGaughey is a Republican in politics, though neither liis tastes nor the demands of his profession lead to active participation in the political events of the day. He is identified with the order of Masonry, and a member of Pleasant Lodge, No. 134, of Free and Accepted Masons, of Acton. He is descended from Scotch Presbyterian stock, and a member of the Acton Presbyterian Church, as also one of its trus- tees. Dr. McGaughey was in 1852 married to Miss Ann A., daughter of Daniel W. Morgan, to whom were born children,-Robert and Otto Livingston. Mrs. McGaughey dicd in 1857, and he was again married in 1858 to Miss Mary S. Boal, whose chil- dren are Rachel, Mellie (deceased), Elizabeth (de- ceased), Jennie, and Samuel.

Among the oldest of living practitioners, equally respected in social and professional life, are Dr. John M. Gaston, somewhat retired since an accident that crippled him for life some years ago, and cost the city some ten thousand dollars' damages ; Dr. Frisbie S. Newcomer, who has served the city in the Council frequently and well, and served also in the faculty of one of the medical colleges ; Dr. James H. Wood- burn, also a professor in one of the medical colleges, superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane, and an active and valuable member of the City Council ; Dr. Thaddeus M. Stevens, a native of Indianapolis, nephew of the celebrated Pennsylvania statesman, actively connected with all hygienic movements and boards of health, and the author of more publica- tions on the hygienic conditions of the city than any other member of the profession; Dr. William C. Thompson, one of the leading moral reformers of the State, for one term a senator in the Legislature from this county, and all the time the family physi- cian of Governor Morton and his attendant in his last illness ; Dr. John M. Dunlap, son of the pioneer Dr. Livingston Dunlap, for many years an assistant in the Insane Hospital ; Dr. Theophilus Parvin, now a professor in the Jefferson Medical College, of Phila- delphia, but for many years among the most eminent physicians of Indiana, and especially distinguished as a medical writer ; Dr. John M. Kitchen, who has prob- ably been longer in the practice than any one now living in the city, but not so long a resident here ; Dr. James W. Hervey, widely known as a writer on professional and social questions. Dr. James K. Bige- low, Dr. L. D. Waterman, Dr. Charles D. Pearson, Dr. Bryan, Dr. Fred Stein, Dr. D. H. Frank, and Dr. W. N. Wishard are of rather later date, coming during or since the war. Of very recent additions to the profession here, among natives of the city, Dr. Calvin I. Fletcher may be named, with Dr. Frank Morrison, of the Medical College of Indiana, for a creditable position in graduating and efficient prosecution of their profession since. The female physicians of the city during the past year were Annie B. Campbell, E. A. Daniels, Ella Deneen, Mary A. Ellis, Amanda M. George, Martha Grimes, Rachel Swain, Elizabetha Schmidt, and M. F. J. Pointer.

298

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

On the 7th of September, 1870, a stock company was formed with one hundred thousand dollars capital, -liable to enlargement at any time,-in twenty-five dollar shares, to establish an institution for the treat- ment of deformities, deficiencies, and injuries requir- ing surgical skill and mechanical appliances. Drs. Allen and Johnson, of the Surgical Institute, were to be the surgeons. One share of twenty-five dollars entitled the holder to nominate one patient for treat- ment; one hundred dollars gave the right to an annual nomination of a patient ; one thousand dollars, to the nomination of a free bed annually ; and five thousand dollars, to a perpetual free bed, passing to heirs or assigns. The intention was to treat the classes of cases specified as cheaply as possible, or free if possible, and provide them at the same time - comfortable homes as cheaply as possible. The Sur- gieal Institute seems to have been adopted as the requisite provision, and sixty patients received in the first year, fourteen from the city, and the others from seventeen other counties in the State. The officers of the association were James M. Ray, President ; Barnabas C. Hobbs, Addison Daggy, W. P. Johnson, A. L. Roache, Vice-Presidents ; William H. Turner, Recording Secretary ; K. H. Boland, Corresponding Secretary ; John C. New, Treasurer.

The National Surgical Institute was incorporated on the 24th of July, 1869, under the control of Dr. Horace R. Allen and Dr. W. P. Johnson, with a capital stock, as appears by a publication made authoritatively in 1876, of five hundred thousand dollars, with the object of " treating all cases of sur- . gery and chronic diseases; also of engaging in the manufacture of surgical and mechanical appliances, splints, bandages, machinery, and other articles needed for the treatment of the afflicted; and also with authority to teach others the same art." There are four branches of the Institute,-the Central in In- dianapolis, the Eastern in Philadelphia, the South- ern in Atlanta, Ga., the Western in San Francisco. The Central, or Indianapolis division occupies a four- story block of buildings, covering, with the shops and subordinate buildings, nearly an acre of ground on the northeast corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets. There are sleeping-rooms in the buildings

for three hundred patients. In the machine-shop, run by a forty-horse engine, are all the machines and appliances required to make the numerous and varied forms of apparatus used in the Institute. From twenty to thirty hands are always employed here, and the expense of it is set at seventy-five thousand dollars a year. The patterns of all the apparatus used in the myriad forms of deficiency, deformity, and disease treated are the invention of Dr. Allen, who has developed " Mechanical Surgery" to a degree that enabled him when recently in Europe to give some valuable instruction to the Orthopedie and other hospitals of the class in England and on the conti- nent. No less than forty thousand patients have been treated in the Institute in the fifteen years of its existence. There is an average of one hundred and seventy-five patients always under treatment and living in the establishment. Previous to the location of the Institute in Indianapolis, it had been main- tained by Drs. Allen and Johnson at Charleston, Ill. It is estimated that it brings to the city every year ten thousand people as visitors, who pay the railroads one hundred thousand dollars a year, and leave in the city, for one expense or another, fully five hundred thousand dollars. Although organized as a private enterprise, the Institute is constantly sought by surgical eases as a publie hospital, and there are treated the frightful injuries of railroad accidents, the stabs and shots of street rows, the broken limbs of builders falling from houses, the carelessly burned by gas or explosive lighting-oils, and all the many varie- ties of injury that occur continually in a large and busy city full of steam machinery and manufacturing apparatus. If the patient ean pay he is expected to pay. If he cannot or will not, that is the end of it. Hundreds of dollars of unpaid fees and unexpected fees are bestowed in gratuitous surgical services here every week. Dr. Allen, besides his professional inventions, has invented some valuable agricultural machinery, and is a liberal contributor to the develop- ment of the enterprise and business of the city. Dr. J. A. Minich has been associated with Drs. Allen and Johnson from the establishment of the Institute here, and is one of the most skillful and estimable members of the profession in the city.

299

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

Dentists,-The earliest practitioner of dentistry as a specialty was Dr. Joshua Soule, son of Bishop Soule, of the Methodist Church, who came here as early as 1832 or 1833, if not carlier. He was town clerk in 1835 and 1836, and in 1837 was a mem- ber of the Council for the Second Ward and presi- dent that term, preceding the late Judge Morrison. The next year he was clerk again. His office was on the east side of Illinois Street for a considerable time, half-way between Maryland and the alley next the Occidental Hotel. His wife was a sister of Joseph Lawson, for thirty years or more a sort of town butt for the boys to have fun with. The next dentist of whom any distinct memory or record remains was David Hunt, who came here about 1840, and had an office in the southwest quadrant of Circle Street till his death, about 1846 or 1847. His brothers, Andrew and George, followed in the same business after his death, and were the principal dentists for several years before and after 1850. Dr. G. A. Wells came then, and is now probably the oldest dentist in continuous practice in the city, with the exception of Dr. George Hunt. Dr. David Hunt was probably the first man in the city to make false teeth singly or in sets forty years or more ago.

The Iodiana Dental College was established in 1879, and provided suitable quarters in the upper stories of the Etna building, on North Pennsylvania Street. The announcement of the fifth term contains the appended list of members of the faculty : John H. Oliver, M.D., Professor of Anatomy ; Junius E. Cravens, D.D.S., Professor of Operative Dentistry ; Edward F. Hodges, M.D., Professor of Physiology ; Milton H. Chappell, D.D.S., Professor of Dental Pathology and Therapeutics ; John N. Hurty, M.D., Professor of Chemistry ; Thomas S. Hacker, D.D.S., Professor of Mechanical Dentistry ; Clinical Profes- sors, Junius E. Cravens, D.D.S., Thomas S. Hacker, D.D.S., John H. Oliver, M.D., Clinical Lecturer on Oral Surgery ; W. S. Wilson, D.D.S., of Brooklyn, N. Y., General Demonstrator of Practice. With an ample number of assistants.

The Board of Health is appointed by the Council and Board of Aldermen at the beginning of every term, and charged with the especial duty of attending to the

hygienic condition of the city. They see to the clean- ing of alleys, the removal of refuse, the scraping of gutters, and whatever they deem necessary to health or protection against epidemics. The " pest-house," a small collection of buildings on the west bank of Fall Creek, above Indiana Avenue, for the care of patients with infectious diseases isolated here, is under the control of the Health Board. The or- ganization of the board was first made in 1850, but for some years there was so much ill-feeling between the members that they did no good till 1854, when Dr. Jameson became a member and managed to put the concern in working order. It has continued with more or less efficiency since, but with more power and more effective service in the last four or five years than before. The present members are Dr. Elder, president of the State Board of Health, Dr. Sutcliffe, and Dr. M. T. Runnells.

The City Dispensary was organized June 10, 1879, and placed first in the charge of Dr. William B. Fletcher, now superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane. The next physician in charge was Dr. C. A. Ritter; the present one is Dr. J. J. Garver. The report for the past year is not yet made up, but for the year before there was shown to have been 3799 patients treated at the office,-now on Ohio Street opposite the City Library,-1221 at their homes, and 80 at the station-house, a total of 5100. Visits made, 3193 ; prescriptions furnished, 10,352. The average cost of each prescription was 12} cents. The city appropriates annually $1500 to the dispensary, and the County Board makes a like appropriation of the same amount. It is a separate institution, in no way connected with the Bobbs Dispensary, which is under the direction of the faculty of the Medical College.

The County Infirmary, or County Asylum, formerly the poor-house, with a farm of one hun- dred and sixty acres, is located in Wayne township, about three miles northwest of the city. The ground was purchased, in 1832, of Elijah Fox. The origi- nal "poor-house" was Mr. Fox's farm-house, a log cabin of two rooms. It was enlarged occasionally as required, chiefly by a large building in 1845. An addition for pauper insane was made in 1858, but

300

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

in 1869, the accommodations proving inadequate, the present large and handsome cdifice was begun. The corner-stone was laid on July 28, 1869, and in October, 1870, the building was dedicated with ap- propriate ceremonies by the Young Men's Christian Association. The front is two hundred and four feet, extreme depth one hundred and eighty-four feet, height four stories. In the rear is a smaller building two stories high and twenty-eight by seventy feet. The first superintendent was Peter Newland. From 1832 to 1839 a board of directors were in control, consisting at one time or another of William McCaw, Cary Smith, James Jolinson, Isaac Pugh, Samuel McCray, George Lockerbie, Thomas F. Stout. The superintendents and physicians since 1840, when the office was created, will be found in the list of county officers appended to the history. The cost of the new buildings was about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and the value of the site about thirty-five thousand dollars.

There are the names of two hundred and forty-two physicians in the City Directory, of whom nine are women, besides a score, probably, of women who have out signs as midwives. There are fewer lawyers than doctors,-two hundred and two only,-and none of them are women.

CHAPTER XIII. MILITARY MATTERS.

Military Organizations in Indianapolis-Marion County in the War of the Rebellion.

Military Companies .- Military show is as much an American passion as money-making, and it goes far to create the military strength sometimes nceded for the enforcement of civil law, and often needed for the illumination of civic demonstrations that other gov- ernments obtain by conscription under rigorous mili- tary systems. We have always had militia systems in this country, but they never amounted to anything more than an annual holiday in Indiana, and prac- tically imposing no duty, imparting no instruction,

serving no end but the electioneering convenience of ambitious officers, they were treated by the practical old pioneers with as little consideration as they de- served. But the lack of effective means of action could not suppress the inborn love of military show and glory. No sooner had the annual " musters" and the system of which they were the visible sign disappeared, as described by ex-Senator Oliver H. Smith in his "Early Indiana Sketches," and quoted in a preceding chapter, than the organization of vol- unteer companies began, with self-imposed rules of instruction and discipline strict enough to compel close attention and speedy proficiency. These soon became an indispensable feature of all popular parades that were not partisan, and that necessity reinforced the native military spirit in maintaining them. The first of these appeared in Indianapolis about the time the last militia muster disappeared. It was organ- ized, or steps taken to that end, on the 22d of Feb- ruary, 1837. Col. A. W. Russell, of the " Bloody Three Hundred," was elected the first captain. The uniform was of gray cloth with black-velvet trim- mings, large bell-shaped black-leather hats of the " grenadier" style, with brass plates and chains and black pompons. It was a neat uniform, and not more stiff and cumbrous than was deemed necessary to military efficiency in that day, when the loose blouse and light cap of our civil war would have thrown a martinet of the Steuben school into a fit.

Col. or Capt. Russell had not the time to do much for the company, so the following year Thomas A. Morris, then a West Point graduate of three or four years' maturity, was made captain, and he speedily made the company. It rarely turned out more than fifty men for parade on the most momentous occasions, but their exact step, accurate poise and handling of arms, scrupolous cleanliness of dress and brilliance of weapons, and their precision in all evolutions, made them a " show" that a boy would play " hook- ey" to see when he would not even to go skating or haw-hunting. The court-house yard was the drill- ground and the parade-ground usually, but frequently Washington Street was made a more conspicuous show-place, and all the movements then known to military art were practiced there. Capt. (now Gen.)

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 54

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