USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 14
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Bishop Francis was born at Eaglesmere, Pennsylvania, April 6, 1862, son of James B. and Charlotte A. (Marshall) Francis. He received his early education at Phila- delphia and later at Racine College and Oxford University. The degree Doctor of Divinity was bestowed upon him in 1899 by Nashotah College in Wisconsin and by Hobart College in 1901.
He was ordained a deacon in the Prot- estant Episcopal Church in 1884, at the age of twenty-two. In 1886 he was made a priest, and in the meantime had held pas- torates at Milwaukee and Greenfield, Wis- consin. During 1886-87 he was canon of the Cathedral at Milwaukee and in 1887-88 was rector at Whitewater, Wisconsin. On June 14, 1887, he married Miss Stevens, of Milwaukee.
Bishop Francis spent nearly ten years in the Far East, in charge of the Episcopal Cathedral at Tokyo and also as professor in Trinity Divinity School there. Return- ing from Japan in 1897 he was appointed rector of St. Paul's Church at Evansville, Indiana, in January, 1898, and from that was called to the post of Bishop of Indian- apolis less than two years later. Since 1904 Bishop Francis has been a member of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary So- ciety.
ROBERT JUDSON ALEY, educator, was born in Jefferson Township of Owen County, Indiana, May 11, 1863, a son of Jesse Jack- son and Paulina Moyer Aley, the former born in Greene County, Kentucky, and the latter in Coshocton County, Ohio. Mr. Aley was well prepared in his earlier years for his life's work. He received the degree of B. S. from Valparaiso University, that of A. B. and A. M. from Indiana Univer- sity, Ph. D. and LL. D., University of Penn- sylvania, and LL.D., Franklin College, and was a student and professor at Stan- ford University 1894-5. In 1877 Profes- sor Aley entered upon his work as an edu- cator, and during the intervening years has steadily advanced until in 1910 he was made the president of the University of Maine. He has served as president of the Southern Indiana Teachers Association, the Indiana State Teachers Association, and the Maine State Teachers Association, as secretary for five years and as president for three years of the National Council of Edu- cation and as president of the National Educational Association. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, the Phi Kappa Phi and the Sigma Xi and is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Bangor Rotary Club.
At Spencer, Indiana, August 28, 1884, Professor Aley was married to Nellie El- mira, a daughter of J. W. Archer, of that city. They have two children, Maxwell Aley, and Ruth Emily Parkhurst.
BENONI STINSON ROSE, M. D. Aside from his long service for a quarter of a century as a capable physician and surgeon at Evansville, Doctor Rose's career and fam- ily are interesting from the fact that one of his great-grandfathers bore arms in the war for independence, a grandfather was a pioneer preacher of Southern Indiana, his father was a soldier in the Civil war, and he himself held the rank of captain in the United States Medical Corps during the recent world war.
His father, Conrad Rose, a native of Eu- rope and brought to this country at the age of five, grew up in the country around Evansville, and in 1862 enlisted in Com- pany H of the Sixty-Fifth Indiana Infan- try, being with the regiment as a brave and faithful soldier through all its cam- paigns. He did not receive his discharge until after the elose of the war, and then
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returned to Vanderburg County and was quietly engaged in the vocation of farming until his death in 1917, at the age of sev- enty-four.
Doctor Rose's mother was Octavia Stin- son, who was born in Perry Township of Vanderburg County in 1841 and died in 1908. Her grandfather, Elijah Stinson, was the Revolutionary ancestor of Doctor Rose. At one time he was assigned to du- ties as a spy by General Washington. In 1781, in Surry County, North Carolina, he married Rachel Cobb, and they finally came to Vanderburg County, Indiana, where Elijah died in March, 1835, and his widow afterward drew a pension for his military services.
Rev. Benoni Stinson, father of Octavia, was born in North Carolina in 1798, and in early life was ordained a Baptist min- ister. He removed to Wayne County, Ken- tuckv. and thence to Vanderburg County in 1822, securing a tract of government land which included the present site of Howell, then heavily timbered. In 1823 he organized Liberty Baptist Church, and preached in many other places in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. He is said to have been a gifted orator, and at the time of the Civil war he used his eloquence to re- cruit soldiers for the Union Army. He was also a successful farmer. His death occurred on his farm in October, 1869. February 19, 1819, he married Ruth A. Martin, daughter of John and Drusilla Martin.
Doctor Rose, who was born at Evans- ville, was one of four children, the others being A. Lincoln, Parthenia, and Harry B. He is a graduate of the Evansville High School, spent two years in the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, and graduated in 1894 from the Louisville Medical College. From that time he practiced steadily in his native city until 1917, when, in July, he was commissioned captain in the Medi- cal Corps. For some time he was with the Third Pioneer Infantry, and was then transferred to General Hospital No. 8 at Otisville, New York. He received an hon- orable discharge in January, 1919. In 1898 he married Helen M. Hewson, daugh- ter of George B. and Mary Hewson of Evansville.
GODLIP C. KUHNER. To the enterprise of Godlip C. Kuhner Muncie owes one of
its valuable industries, the Kuhner Pack- ing Company. Mr. Kuhner is primarily a farmer and producer, but for many years his experience has also been in the varied lines of meat handling and packing. He first engaged in meat killing on his farm on a very small scale, and gradually has developed his facilities until it now repre- sents a large investment and an important local industry.
Mr. Kuhner was born July 29, 1858, in Scioto County, Ohio, a son of Godlip C. Kuhner, Sr. His father came to America in 1847, being then a single man. From Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he enlisted as a soldier in the Mexican war. Thus he early showed those qualities of Americanism which have been characteristic of his de- scendants. After the war and the termi- nation of his military service he married and engaged in farming at Portsmouth, Ohio, and subsequently bought 120 acres in Harrison Township of Scioto Connty. Much of this land he cleared up by his own industry, and put it in a high state of cultivation. He lived there until his death in 1865. He and his wife, Sophie, had nine children, four of whom died in infancy, while the others are still living.
Godlip C. Kuhner, Jr., who was the sixth among his parents' children, was only seven years old when his father died. His father was a Lntheran and a republi- can in politics. The boy grew np on the old homestead and assisted his mother in looking after the farm until he was seven- teen years old. He had worked at farm labor for wages for several years, and next bought a place of his own in Bloom Town- ship in Scioto County. It was while oper- ating this farm that he engaged in a small way in the butcher business, and he re- mained there until 1895. That year going to Portsmouth he established a packing plant in which he handled ten or twelve cattle and 100 hogs a week.
Selling this business in Ohio he came to Indiana and located at Greentown in How- ard County, and for three years was in the retail meat business. Mr. Kuhner came to Muncie in 1900, and established here a meat market which is still operated. In 1904 he enlarged the scope of his oper- ations by constructing a small packing house on the farm he had bought in North Muncie. The first considerable additions to his facilities were made in 1912, and
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other additions have followed until at the present time the plant has a capacity of from 80 to 100 cattle and 600 hogs per week. Among the facilities is a modern cold storage plant and ice factory, manu- facturing forty tons of ice per day and with complete refrigeration processes and other equipment used in the modern indus- try of meat packing and storage.
Mr. Kuhner now relies largely upon his son for the active management of this in- dustry. He married January 15, 1880, Mary Prior, who died in 1898. Four chil- dren were born to them, and the three now living are: Henry C., born October 16, 1880; Ella S., born August 2, 1882; and Frank, born January 5, 1884. The Kuh- ner Packing Company is now an incorpo- ration, with Henry C. Kuhner as president, Godlip C., vice president, and Frank G., secretary and treasurer. Their retail meat market is at 115 East Charles Street.
Mr. Kuhner has always manifested that public spirit which makes him a factor of benefit in any community. He is a mem- ber of the Knights of Pythias and a re- publican in politics. As he grew up on a farm he has always maintained an interest in agriculture, and has been a successful farmer both in Ohio and in Indiana. In 1915 he constructed one of the beautiful residences of Muncie, a bungalow at 1027 North Elm Street. In 1913 he married Mary Obright, who has a son living in New York.
REV. JACOB U. SCHNEIDER, who has been continuously identified with the Zion Evan- gelical Church at Evansville as pastor for twenty-six years, is one of the most distin- guished and influential leaders of that de- nomination in Indiana.
He was born at Shanesville, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, a son of George and Mar- garet (Troxell) Schneider. When he was a small boy his parents moved out to the frontier of Nebraska, locating on a farm in Richardson County. The father spent the rest of his life as a Nebraska farmer. Rev. Mr. Schneider therefore had his early school advantages confined to the old schools of Richardson County. Later he took a commercial course at Bryant & Stratton College in St. Joseph, Missouri, and pursued his classical studies in Elm- hurst College near Chicago. In 1886 he graduated from the Eden Theological Sem-
inary in St. Louis and was ordained a min- ister of the Evangelical Church. His first pastorate was at Castle Shannon near Pitts- burg, Pennsylvania. Two years later he went to Jefferson City, Missouri, as pastor of the Evangelical Church in that city, serving it capably and effectively for five years. After that he was principal of the high school at Washington, Missouri, and in 1895 came to Evansville to accept the pastorate of Zion Evangelical Church. He has not only maintained a large and pros- perous church organization but has inter- ested himself in everything that makes for a better city. He was a member of the Board of Education from 1910 to 1918, and served as its secretary and treasurer, and was also a member of the Playground Com- mission. He has been president of the Board of Directors of the Protestant Dea- coness Hospital since 1896. In the larger affairs of his church he is known as chair- man of the Synodical Literary Board, chairman of the Board of Examiners of Candidates for the Ministry, and chairman of the Committee on Relations of the Synod to other Christian bodies.
In 1886 Rev. Mr. Schneider married Rosa L. Langtim. She was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, a daughter of Ernest and Minnie (Ehlers) Langtim. Mr. and Mrs. Schneider have every reason to be proud of their family of children, three in num- ber, named Carl, Selma, and Herbert.
Carl Schneider graduated from the Evansville High School, also attended Elm- hurst College, and followed the example of his father entered the Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, of which he is a graduate. Beyond that he continued his preparations abroad, a student in a semi- nary at Tubingen, in the University of Leipzig and in the University of Berlin. He is now Professor of Religious Educa- tion in Eden Seminary. Carl Schneider married Louise Fisher, and they have one son, named Carl, Jr.
The daughter, Selma, a graduate of the Evansville High School and of DePauw University at Greencastle, after leaving college engaged in social service work at Sleighton Farm, the seat of the Pennsyl- vania State Reform School for Girls, but is now a teacher in the Evansville public schools.
Herbert Schneider is a graduate of the Evansville High School. He entered the
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United States service June 24, 1918, and went to Europe, and up to the spring of 1919 was still in France as a member of Company C of the Three Hundred and Ninth Engineers.
ELBERT HAMILTON SHIRK was the founder of the First National Bank of Peru, the oldest financial institution of Miami County and with an impressive record of strength, resources and service during the more than half century of its existence.
He not only founded the bank but also a family name which has endured in high honor in Northern Indiana and other local- ities through several generations. Elbert Hamilton Shirk was born in Franklin County, Indiana, February 14, 1818, son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Stout) Shirk. His father came to Indiana from Georgia and his mother from Kentucky. For all the fact that Indiana had nothing in the way of public education to offer such youth as Elbert H. Shirk, it was a day and age which produced strong men, thoroughly capable of handling big affairs. He spent his boyhood on a farm, attended subscrip- tion schools, and after reaching manhood was for two years a student at Miami Uni- versity at Oxford, Ohio. For two years he taught in the Rush County Seminary.
However, he early recognized that his talents were best adapted for business. In 1844 he moved to Peru, and forming a partnership with John Harlan was for some years one of the early merchants of the town. From that time until his death in 1886 his career was one of unbroken pros- perity. After a year he engaged in mer- chandising on his own account. He pos- sessed the judgment, the foresight and the executive ability which are characteristic of great merchants. He was a student of methods and men and of every circum- stance which would affect his enterprise. He built up a trade which extended throughout Indiana and embarked in nu- merous enterprises which always rewarded his judgment with good profit. He dealt in depreciated land warrants which had been issued to the veterans of the Mexican war and invested them in lands in the then western states of Kansas, Iowa, and Ne- braska. Many of the settlers who went from this section of Indiana to those trans- Mississippi states were equipped with war- rants for land sold them by Mr. Shirk.
This was his first extensive venture in real estate, and he thereafter followed up that line of business very extensively and syste- matically. It was in considerable part through his real estate operations that his large fortune was accumulated. Some of the best of his investments were made in Chicago when that city was in its most rapid development period.
He had opened a private bank for de- posits in 1857, and through his own re- sources and his high standing in the com- munity he kept that institution unim- paired through the troublous financial times that followed. In 1864, the year fol- lowing the passage of the National Bank Act, he organized the First National Bank, and held the office of president until his death. The community long refused to call it the First National and instead it was known by the more familiar title of "Shirk's Bank," and it was largely the private resources and good judgment of the founder that gave it its solid character.
In banking, merchandising and real es- tate Elbert H. Shirk was undoubtedly one of the strongest men of his time in In- diana. Had he chosen for the field of his enterprise one of the great cities of the country his name would undoubtedly have been associated with that of the greatest merchant princes in America. While he was pre-eminent as a creator of business re- sources he was also a constant influence for the conservation and development of everything affecting the welfare of society. For many years he was one of the most active members of the Baptist Church of Peru, contributing half the cost of the church edifice erected during his lifetime. He was a quiet worker in benevolence and philanthropy in his city. He had little to do with partisan politics but was a whig and later a republican voter. He is re- membered as a man of apparently slight and frail physique, but possessing a nerv- ous energy and will power which constantly co-operated with his remarkable business judgment, and from such a combination resulted his great success and influence in affairs.
He was devoted to family and friends and his home was a center of the cultured social life of his community. The old Shirk home in the midst of an entire square at the edge of the Peru business district is and has long been one of the landmarks of
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that city. In June, 1845, Elbert H. Shirk married Mary Wright, who was of English descent and a native of Franklin County, Indiana. She was a woman of rare strength of character, and during her long and happy associations with her husband she exerted many of the influences which gave him power and success. Elbert H. Shirk died April 8, 1886. His widow passed away in August, 1894. They had a family of two sons and one daughter. One of the sons was Milton Shirk, who succeeded his father as president of the First National Bank. The only daughter of Elbert H. Shirk was Alice, now the wife of R. A. Edwards, president of the First National Bank of Peru.
DALE D. GOLDEN is manager of the By-Lo Hardware Company of Anderson. This is one of a chain of stores conducted by one of the largest retail hardware or- ganizations in the middle west. It is a po- sition of responsibility, and is adequate testimony to the qualifications of Mr. Golden as an executive and as a thoroughly experienced hardware man. While he is only thirty years of age, his record of bus- iness experience has been a rather long one and indicates that he has concentrated a great deal of experience and energy into a few brief years.
Mr. Golden was born in 1888 at Acton in Marion County, Indiana, but when two years of age his parents, Charles E. and Luella (Dalby) Golden, moved to Indian- apolis. The family is of Irish and English ancestry. In Indianapolis Mr. Golden at- tended the public schools, but his education was practically completed by the time he was fourteen years of age. He soon after- ward went to work as an office boy with the contracting firm of King & Company. He spent five rather profitable years with this firm, and acquired some very valuable experience as a draftsman in the archi- tect's rooms. He then sought a new ave- nue for his energies, and for two years was an apprentice learning the tinsmith trade with Frank H. Brunk at Indianapolis. He then went to work as a clerk in the Brunk hardware store, and remained with that merchant altogether for nine or ten years, part of the time practically as manager of the hardware department.
In 1915 Mr. Golden came to Anderson and opened a new branch of the By-Lo
Stores Company. This corporation has a large number of stores both in Indiana and Illinois. In the three years since its es- tablishment the store at Anderson has grown rapidly and has attracted a large proportion of the local trade by reason of the fact that its equipment and stock is of the very best character and quality. The business as it stands today at Anderson is practically the product of Mr. Golden's energies and ideas, and it is impossible not to look forward into the future and pre- dict for him a splendidly successful career as a merchant and business man. He is a member of the Indiana Retail Hardware Association.
In 1911 Mr. Golden married Mary Baum, daughter of Thomas and Della (Wyckoff) Baum. They have two children, Kenneth Dale, born in 1913, and Mary Ellen, born in 1915. Mr. Golden takes an independent stand in regard to politics. He is affiliated with Meridian Lodge No. 480 of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows at Indian- apolis.
JOHN EUGENE IGLEHART. The name Iglehart has been prominent in the annals of the Evansville bar for a great many years. John Eugene Iglehart has prac- ticed there nearly half a century and his father before him was an eminent member of the Southern Indiana bar.
The Iglehart family came originally from Saxony and were colonial settlers in Amer- ica. Mr. Iglehart is a great-great-grand- son of John and Mary (Denune) Iglehart. The Denune branch of the family repre- sents French Hugnenots. John and Mary had a son named John, and he in turn was father of Levi Iglehart, who was born in Prince George County, Maryland, Angust 13, 1786. He was reared and educated in his native state and married there Anne Taylor. About 1815 he came west to the Ohio Valley and in 1823 settled in War- rick County, Indiana, became a pioneer land owner and farmer and lived there the rest of his life. He was a magistrate in 1825 and later was lay judge of the Cir- cuit Court.
Asa Iglehart, father of the Evansville lawyer, was born in Kentucky December 8, 1817, and was reared among the hills of Warrick County. With limited oppor- tunities he acquired a good education, and after his marriage he continued farming
Joseph D. adams
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until 1849. He had devoted much of his spare time to the study of law and was ad- mitted to the bar during that year and at once located at Evansville. Here he be- came a member of the firm Ingle, Wheeler & Iglehart. In 1854 he was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas and was afterward elected to that office. In 1858 he resumed private practice, and for a number of years he appeared in cases of great importance not only in the Circuit and Superior Courts but in the Supreme Court of the state and the United States, and moved on terms of easy fellowship with many of the notable men of the state and nation. Ill health finally compelled him to retire from practice, and he died February 5, 1887.
Judge Iglehart married Ann Cowle, who was born in Huntingtonshire, England, a daughter of William and Sarah (Ingle) Cowle. Sarah Cowle was one of the pio- neer settlers of Vanderburg County, In- diana, coming in 1823, when a widow. Asa Iglehart and wife had three children : Fred C., John E., and Annie.
John Eugene Iglehart was born on a farm in Campbell Township, Warrick County, August 10, 1848. He was liber- ally educated in the schools of Evansville and at Asbury, now DePauw, University, where he graduated at the age of twenty. He was soon afterward admitted to the bar and at once began practice at Evans- ville. November 4, 1874, he married Lockie W. Holt, daughter of Robert and Ann Holt. They have four children: Eu- gene H., Ann, and Lockie H. and Joseph H. Mr. Iglehart is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
JOSEPH D. ADAMS. Some thirty or thirty-five years ago Joseph D. Adams, then a resident of Parke County, Indiana; was enacting the rather humble role of a coun- try school teacher and farmer. An un- solicited honor came to him, though per- haps it was regarded as an honor neither by him nor those who conferred it upon him. His fellow citizens in the district elected him road supervisor. It is the only public office Mr. Adams ever held, and it was one he neither sought nor wanted.
American people have become so accus- tomed to a perfunctory performance of offi- cial duty that they are only surprised when
something out of the ordinary in the way of efficiency develops. It was in this way that Mr. Adams turned the joke on the people who elected him road supervisor. He used his official authority in compelling his neighbors to work the roads with as much vigor and system as they did their farms. But the main point of the story is not the efficiency of his administration as road supervisor, but the fact that during this experience Mr. Adams gained his first insight into the inadequacy of road work- ing machinery. A few years later he took the agency and went on the road and be- gan traveling over that section of Indiana and other states selling road making ma- chinery. During all the years he was in- terviewing county commissioners and other road officials in the interests of his com- pany he was at the same time using his mind and mechanical ingenuity in specu- lafing as to how he could improve road making implements. Out of this period of study and experimentation he evolved one after the other of what are today widely known as the "Little Wonder Grader," the "Road King" line, and "Square Deal" line of road graders, and other implements and devices now known generally through- out the length and breadth of the land. His invention of the adjustable leaning wheel as applied to road graders was so far in advance of competition as to practically give him a monopoly.
Along with the genius to invent Mr. Adams possessed the business ability of the salesman and the manufacturer. Thus it was that in 1895 he founded the J. D. Adams & Company of Indianapolis, of which he is now president. With limited capital and in limited quarters he began the manufacture of his inventions. He kept his machines before the attention of the public, made them worthy of confi- dence and patronage, was exceedingly care- ful in bringing out only the best products of the kind, and there naturally followed a rapid increase of the business. The sur- plus was reinvested in extensions and im- provements, and after about twenty years J. D. Adams & Company now conduct one of the larger industrial plants of Indiana, furnishing employment to 250 individuals, and manufacturing about fifteen different types of road grading machines.
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