USA > Indiana > Whitley County > History of Whitley County, Indiana > Part 55
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May 20, 1880, Mr. Bridge married Miss Elsie Lenwell, whose parents were pioneer settlers of Kosciusko county, and who later settled in Washington township. She was born in 1856, was seventeen years old upon coming to this county, and twenty-four at marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Bridge had four
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sons : Arthur, who married Rosa Rupert, manages the old homestead; Salathiel Castle is bookkeeper in the First National Bank at Columbia City ; Emmet, having finished the high school course at Columbia City, is a teacher in the old home school; Clemmet, twin brother of the last mentioned. is a student in the freshman class at Wabash College.
ROSANNA CRIDER.
Indiana was still a young state when Francis Tulley was married in Ross county, Ohio, to Mary E. Nickey, of Augusta coun- ty, Virginia, and came with his bride to Whitley county. This was in 1834, and previous to that time, friends had already settled in the same vicinity, Samuel Smith had built the first cabin in the township, subsequently named after him, and this rude structitre was occupied by the Tulleys dur- ing the owner's temporary absence. Francis Tulley built the second cabin in Smith township, and here he made his hoine 1 for over forty years, meantime acc11- mulating four hundred acres of land most of which he distributed among his children. In 1872, he removed to Columbia City, where he lived in retirement until his death, twenty-four years later, in 1896, sır- viving his life companion one year.
The children of this pioneer couple were four in number: Rosanna; William A., proprietor of a repair shop in Columbia City : Cyrus B., lawyer and member of the legislature, who died at his home in Colum- bia City, aged fifty-five; and Wesley C. who lives on the old homestead in Smith town- ship.
Rosanna Tulley, eldest of these, was born in Smith township, September 15, 1834. this being the same year in which her par- ents came. Neighbors were few and far be- tween, wolves were plentiful and made the lonesome night still more dreary by their dis- mal howling, it being the custom of the set- tlers to fire guns to frighten them away. In- dians were also numerous, though not hostile and often called at the Tulley cabin for food or out of idle curiosity. If Rosanna's birth was romatic, her youth and girlhood were none the less so, though they did not differ materially from those of other pioneer chil- dren in the western wilderness. She had to "pitch in" to help clear the farm and many a sturdy blow she struck with ax or mattock, to say nothing of holding the plow, feeding the stock, and attending to the household drudgery. The first school she attended was kept in the kitchen of her parents, and was taught by an Eastern man named Wisner. Her father had to work out to secure food for the family, and often put in three days of hard work for one bushel of corn meal. He had brought with him from Ohio a team and cow and had to cut a road through the woods to his land. She and her mother spent many weary hours spinning and weav- ing cloth with which to make wearing ap- parel for the household. November 1, 1855. when she was twenty-one years of age, there was a pioneer wedding at this rude cabin in the woods. the contracting parties being John Crider and herself. The groom, who was but two months older, had come into Smith township with his parents when about fifteen years of age, and as a wedding present his father gave him a horse and cow. The bride's dowery consisted of two horses, two cows, a sheep and forty acres of wild land.
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They went to housekeeping in a small frame structure. and with the sturdy courage char- acteristic of those times, faced resolutely toward the future. Before marriage Mr. Crider had taught school at intervals and he kept at this occupation intermittently for some time after. He was, however, of an ambitious turn of mind, and aspired to some- thing higher than grubbing and township teaching. In 1872, he removed to Colum- bia City, was elected township assessor and during spare hours devoted himself to the study of the law. Forming a partnership with his brother-in-law, Cyrus B. Tulley, he entered actively into practice until 1882, meantime running a hardware store. His death occurred at Churubusco November 6, 1903. Mr. and Mrs. John Crider had three children : Noah W., the oldest, taught school and dealt in musical instruments, books and sewing machines and died unmarried at the residence of his mother after two years' ill- ness of consumption, aged twenty-six years. Rosa May died in infancy and Bertie Wilson died in 1885, when eleven years old, just two months after his older brother had passed away. Since 1874, Mrs. Crider, the bereaved mother and widow, has lived in her residence on North Line street, and de- voted her life to works of charity and re- ligion. A lifelong member of the United Brethren church, none have done more than she to forward the interests of this denomi- nation. The structure in which the services are held is situated on the corner of Chaun- cey and Market streets facing the court house square and bears the name of Tulley-Crider Memorial church, being, as the name would indicate, a building put up in honor of the family, and erected largely through the ef-
forts of Mrs. Crider. During all these years she has continued to support the church liberally, not only by generous contribution of funds but by individual effort and all her personal influence.
COL. ISAIAH B. McDONALD.
Born of a martial family whose mem- bers showed in the time of its imminent peril that they were ardently devoted to the Union, three of them laying down their lives on the altar of their country in the Civil war, Col. Isaiah B. McDonald, of Whitley coun- ty, bore well and bravely his part in that awful struggle between the sections of our then unhappy country, and made a military record of which any man might well be proud, sustaining the honor of his family, his state and his county, and making for the credit of the whole body of American manhood.
The Colonel is a native of Culpeper, Virginia, where he was born on September 18, 1826, and is a son of Carter and Mary Elizabeth (Carder) McDonald, who were born in Scotland and came to the United States in their childhood. They obtained their education in the common schools of Virginia, and after leaving school the father became a blacksmith, a craft which he fol- lowed industriously to the end of his life. In 1835 the family moved from Virginia to Wooster, Ohio, and seven years later they became residents of this county, in which they passed the remainder of their lives, the father dying in 1872 in the house in which the Colonel lives, and the mother passing
Iam yours Truly
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away in 1883. They were earnest and de- vout members of the Baptist church and lived acceptably in accordance with its teach- ings. In politics the father was an anti- slavery Democrat. They were the parents of thirteen children: Melzer, who was a farmer in Ohio and Indiana, and died in Noble county of the latter state at the age of seventy-nine years; Isaiah B., the imme- diate and interesting subject of this memoir ; Malachi, who was a farmer, served through the Civil war, and died in California in 1892, aged sixty-eight years; David, who was a farmer in Indiana, and who was killed on the railroad at the age of fifty-eight years; Samuel B., who was a farmer, and a soldier in Company G, Fifteenth Indiana Infantry, serving more than four years in the Army of the Cumberland and the subsequent or- ganization in which it was merged. He died as the result of army service at Colum- bus Grove, Ohio, in 1903. in his fifty-fifth year; Joseph G., who died in early life: Silas B., who was a farmer and died in the Indian Territory in 1901; James G., who was a soldier and served in Company B. Seventy-fourth Indiana Infantry. He was wounded at the battle of Chickamauga and deserted by his company on the battlefield, where he was taken prisoner, and after suf- fering all the horrors of Andersonville prison he there starved to death and his remains were buried in a trench without a mark; Mary Jane, who was the wife of William B. Benton, of Noble county, Indiana, and died in 1906, leaving five children; Sarah Jane, wife of Alfred Peyton, of Allen coun- ty, this state, deceased; William, a farmer who is now tax commissioner of Whitley county ; and Andrew Jackson, a farmer and
a soldier in the Union army, serving in Com- pany I, Thirtieth Indiana Infantry. He was wounded at the battle of Stone River and died soon afterward in a hospital at Louisville, Kentucky. Eliza married Daniel Hollycress, and both died in Whitley county.
Col. Isaiah B. McDonald attended the public schools in Ohio until his parents moved to Indiana. In February, 1844, he returned to Ohio, and there worked as a farm hand for a time, going to school in the winter season. In 1845 he began to learn the carpenter trade, working out an apprenticeship of two years and during the greater part of this period devoting his evenings and all other time when he was not at work to a systematic course of reading. He then taught school in Ohio for three years, after which he followed the same oc- cupation at Christiansburg, Kentucky, for two years. He read law under the instruc- tion of John McSweeney, of Wooster, Ohio, and Martin D. McHenry, of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and on his return to Indiana in June, 1852, he was elected prosecuting at- torney for Noble and Whitley counties. In November of the same year he was ap- pointed school examiner for Whitley county. He filled both offices acceptably until No- vember 19. 1855. when he was qualified as clerk of Whitley circuit court, an office he held four years. He then served again as school examiner until April, 1861, when he enlisted in defense of the Union as a private soldier of Company E, Seventeenth Indiana Infantry, of which he was soon afterward elected second lieutenant, and commissioned as such by Governor Morton. On July 20. 1861. he was made senior aide-de-camp and
29
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acting assistant adjutant general on the staff of Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds, serving in West Virginia. General Reynolds resigned in 1862 and Lieutenant McDonald was trans- ferred to the staff of Gen. Robert H. Milroy. then at Huttonville, West Virginia. In April of that year he was appointed captain of commissary of subsistence by President Lincoln, and continued on the staff of Gen- eral Milroy until June, 1863, when driven from Winchester, Virginia, by General Lee. During all these years he took an active part at the front under Generals Reynolds, Mil- roy, Siegel, Kelly and others, at Elkwater, Cheat Mountain, Green Brier River, Camp Allegheny, McDowell, Strasburg. Cross Keys, Cedar Mountain, Waterloo Bridge, in the second Bull Run fight, and in many other engagements in which the contest was war to the knife and the knife to the hilt on both sides. On August 22. 1862, he had his hardest fight to save the army trains of Mil- roy's command and other divisions, at Cat- lett's station. Virginia. General Pope's headquarters and trains were captured, sacked and burned by Gen. J. E. B. Stewart, and Colonel McDonald had only ninety- four men with whom to fight off Rosser's and Lee's commands during a terribly stormy night. In June, 1863. he took an active part in the battle of Winchester, from which he was driven into Pennsylvania, and in the ensuing month of July was placed in charge of military matters at Hagerstown. Maryland, where he remained until Decem- ber following, when he was ordered to re- port to Gen. B. F. Kelly at Cumberland, Maryland. In April, 1864, he was com- missioned lieutenant colonel of the Sixth West Virginia Veteran Cavalry. He passed
two months in reorganizing this regiment, but at the end of that period, owing to the state of his health, he declined to muster as lieutenant colonel, but returned to his home. Governor Morton afterward offered him the command of the One Hundred and Fifty- second Indiana Infantry, but he was obliged to decline the proffered honor on account of the state of his health.
Colonel McDonald was slightly .wounded twice, but was not disabled from service an hour. During the whole of his long and active service he was never under arrest or reprimanded. Entering the army as a pri- vate soldier, for meritorious conduct and ex- cellent service he received promotions from Governor Morton of Indiana, Gen. J. J. Rey- nolds of the army, President Lincoln and Governor Boreman, of West Virginia. After his return from the army he once more entered public life in the service of the people. being school examiner of Whitley county from November. 1864. to December 25, 1870, and on the date last given became a member of the lower house of the state legislature, receiving a majority of seven hundred and thirty-one votes, the largest ever received by any candidate in the county. In 1886, he was elected to the senate from Allen and Whitley counties. Up to this time there had never been passed by the legislature any bill originating from a Whitley county member. But this record was gloriously reversed by the activity and influence of Colonel McDonald. He was chairman of the military committee in the senate, and as such put through the bill providing for the erection of the Soldiers' Monument and carrying an appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars for the pur-
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pose of starting the monument. This bill he succeeded in getting every senator to vote for, and as the monument finally cost over six hundred thousand dollars, the importance of so good a start for the project may easily be realized. He afterward secured by a unanimous vote from the Indiana depart- ment of the Grand Army of the Republic an appropriation of nineteen thousand dol- lars for the foundation of this monument. Other legislation of great importance of which he may properly be styled the father, was the law locating the school for feeble- minded children at Fort Wayne, which he se- cured the passage of after a stubborn fight, and the reorganization of the Knightstown Soldiers' Orphans' School. In this behalf he got the titles to the real estate perfected and an appropriation of fifty-four thousand dollars for putting the school in good condition.
Colonel McDonald has been connected with the public press since 1859, and is still in the harness. He established the Columbia City News, now the Post, has been the owner of the Huntington Democrat and the Fort Wayne Daily and Weekly Journal, and is now part owner of the Ligonier Banner.
Colonel McDonald was first married on the day of the presidential election in 1852, when he was united with Miss Agnes S. Kollar, of Wayne county, Ohio, who lived only eleven months after her marriage. On November 28, 1854, the Colonel married as his second wife Miss Catherine Brenne- man, of this county, who died ninteen years ago. Four children were born of this union, two of whom are living: James Eli, who has been state senator for DeKalb and Noble counties, and has served on the state board of agriculture for more than twenty years.
He is part owner and the managing editor of the Ligonier Banner. He is an active Democrat, fifty-one years old, and has three children. Charles Emmett McDonald was for some years engaged in teaching, but he is now the managing editor of the Auburn Daily and Weekly Courier. He is a fluent and forceful writer, lives at Auburn and has three children. The third child, Abraham C., died at Ligonier in 1866, aged twenty- three years. He was a graduate of the Columbia City high school and an excellent printer ; and the fourth child, also a son, Frank Warren McDonald, a printer and telegraph operator, died of hip disease at the age of twenty-two. The Colonel married his third wife June 9, 1889. She was Miss Clemenza Bechtel, daughter of Martin Bechtel, of this county. He was widely known and highly esteemed as a "grand old man." Mrs. McDonald is an active mem- ber of the First Baptist church of Columbia City and a devoted worker in the Woman's Relief Corps. Colonel McDonald is also a zealous member of the Baptist church, and one of the trustees. Out of his earnings in the clerk:'s office he built the first church for this denomination in the city and has continued a liberal supporter. He was an Odd Fellow from 1858 to 1888. He was made a Free Mason in 1863 and is now a Knight Tem- plar. Ever since its organization, he has belonged to the Grand Army of the Republic and in this organization he lias filled every office but that of department commander.
In 1872, the first effort was begun toward the making of a new up-to-date residence town of Columbia City. Colonel McDonald was the first to begin a system of sewerage, in company with Eli W. Brown, Theodore Reed and Cyrus B. Tulley. The matter
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was contended in the courts, but soon other progressive men adopted the idea and it was not long before the town began to assume more desirable conditions. He has ever stood for better conditions and never hesi- tated to engage in battle, either in the news- paper columns or in courts.
Always a Democrat, he has always been active in the party. In 1860, he was a dele- gate to the Charleston convention that was adjourned to Baltimore. He was active as a campaign speaker and has probably made more speeches than most men in Indiana. In 1876, he was a Tilden elector, receiving over six thousand majority in his district. In later campaigns he was a Bryan man, and keeps in touch with the modern tenets of his party.
FERDINAND F. MORSCHES.
This name has been made familiar in Whitley county by reason of the long resi- dence and prominent business connections of the founder of the family. The latter was William H. Morsches, a native of one of the Rhine provinces of Germany, who after his marriage came to the United States in 1868. Locating in Chicago, he took em- ployment as a baker and brewer and con- tinued in this line for several years. In 1871, he came to Columbia City to accept the position of brew-master of the present Walter Raupfer Brewing Company, and later the Strausser Brewing Company, which he purchased in 1882 and conducted four or five years. After that he opened a bakery on the present site of Eganson's store, and continued in this business for seven or eight
years, at which time he retired. He died December 10, 1906, at the advanced age of eighty-six years, leaving a second wife, Ger- trude Kempton, as his widow. By his first wife he had two children and eleven by the second union, of whom seven are living.
Ferdinand F. Morsches was born in Columbia City, April 14, 1873. As soon as he became old enough to work, he entered the mill-yard of the Peabody Lumber Com- pany as a laborer, and now has been with that company eighteen years. For seven years he has been manager for the three mills of the company, which employ fifty men in the Columbia City plant and about sixty- five in all, besides teamsters, timber cutters and miscellaneous help. Mr. Morsches is a stockholder and vice president of the com- pany, being in direct management of the pro- duction of the lumber, the full details of the immense business frequently devolving upon him, especially in the absence of the president of the company. He has a fine business standing, is full of energy and keen discernment as to needs in the mills or yards and has a happy faculty of eliciting hearty co-operation of all employes. He is too busy to indulge in social affairs or politics, but is fond of out-door sports and during vacation seasons enjoys an outing on the lakes with his rod or in the forest with his gun.
October 3, 1896, Mr. Morsches was united in marriage with Miss Mabel Foust, a lady of prominent and influential social connections. She is a niece of Franklin H. Foust and a daughter of Albert Foust, de- ceased, both well known citizens of Whitley county. Mr. and Mrs. Morsches have two children, who have been christened Eliza- beth and Carl F.
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EDWARD L. GALLAGHER,
contractor, ex-county official and one of the esteemed citizens of Columbia City, is a native of Trumbull county, Ohio, where his birth occurred on April 2, 1860. As the name indicates, he is of Irish descent, his parents, Hugh and Anna (O'Brien) Gal- lagher, both having been born in the Em- erald Isle. By occupation Hugh Gallagher was a stone mason. He came to America in 1851 and after following his trade for a limited period in the city of New York, went to Mahoning county, Ohio, where he be- came manager of a farm near Youngstown, which position he held until earning sufficient means to purchase property of his own, when, in 1866, he moved to Whitley county, Indiana, locating at Columbia City. Short- ly after his arrival here he purchased a lot and in due time erected a house, after which he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railway Company and still later took con- tracts for constructing ditches for the county and private citizens. While thus engaged Mr. Gallagher demonstrated marked ability. He died May 5, 1895, just twenty-nine years to a day from the date of his arrival in Columbia City. Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher had eight children, the oldest of whom, James, died in 1872; Patrick is a contractor in the state of Ohio: Thomas G. was an agent for twenty-five years on the Wabash Railroad. Both himself and wife are dead, ' their five children being kindly cared for by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Gallagher; the fifth in succession is the subject of this sketch; Mary, married Dennis Galvin, of Columbia City; Frank, is train dispatcher at Joliet, Illinois, and Hugh and a twin sister to Ed-
ward died in infancy. Of the early years and experience of Edward L. Gallagher the biographer can speak only in a general way, there being nothing of the tragic connected with that period of life. Until his eleventh year his time was largely given to study in the public schools and at about that age he took his first contract, which was the piling of a large amount of staves, which required a month's hard labor, and for which he re- ceived the sum of seventy-eight dollars. He has always considered this the most satisfac- tory contract he ever carried out and recalls it with a greater degree of pleasure than any other experience in his business career. After assisting his father for several years and becoming familiar with every phase of contracting. Mr. Gallagher engaged in the same line of business for himself and, with the exception of the period devoted to his office duties, has followed the same to the present time, meeting with a large measure of success and earning an honorable reputa- tion for faithful and efficient work. Like his father before him, his work has taken a wide range and while doing the major part of the contracting in his line in Whitley county, he has also taken a number of large jobs elsewhere. It is a matter worthy of note that throughout his entire business ca- reer as a contractor. he has never worked a day under the direction of a superior, a fact of which he feels deservedly proud, and which it may safely be said is a remarkable exception in the lives of the majority of me- chanics and business men. Mr. Gallagher is a Democrat and for a number of years has been an active participant in political af- fairs. In 1896, he was appointed deputy sheriff of Whitley county, under B. F. Hull,
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the duties of which position he discharged in such a creditable manner that at the ex- piration of his four years of service he was elected sheriff, being the only deputy that ever succeeded to the office since the county was organized. He took charge of the of- fice in 1900 and two years later was re- elected for a second term, at the expiration of which, in 1904, he resumed the business which he had temporarily discontinued eight years before. He operates a steam dredge, working night and day, and employing about eight assistants and with which he has con- structed at least two hundred miles of drains, not only in Whitley but in many other coun- ties and in other states. The business is conducted under the name of The Raupfer & Briggs Drainage Company, consisting of Benjamin Raupfer, S. O. Briggs, Dennis Galvin and Mr. Gallagher. In his religious belief Mr. Gallagher is a Catholic and an in- fluential member of the church in Columbia City. He belongs to the Catholic Knights of America and the Modern Woodmen, in both of which organizations he has been honored with important official positions.
On January 31, 1900, Mr. Gallagher was united in the holy bonds of matrimony with Miss Emma Adang, who was born in Fos- toria, Ohio, but since about 1896, has re- resided in Whitley county. Mrs. Gallagher's ancestors were of German blood, her grand- father emigrating to America in an early day and settling in Seneca county, Ohio. Her parents, who were both natives of that state, moved to Indiana in the year indicated above and are now residents of Columbia City. Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher have three children, Mary Ann, Edna L., and Hortense Ber- nice. Besides these, his brother's five chil-
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