USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 17
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"The Libby lathe gets its name from its designer, Charles L. Libby, head of the pro- duction and engineering department of the International Machine Tool Company. The company does considerable enginering work, being equipped to take blue prints or samples of work, make an estimate of the time required to produce the work on Libby lathes and design the necessary cut- ting and forming tools and holding fix- tures." Further Mr. Iles gave out the in- formation that the International Machine Tool Company had filled orders for these Libby lathes in South Africa, Australia, Japan, Russia, Italy, France, England, Spain. China and Belgium.
Mr. Libby married Miss Catherine Kurtz, who was born in the famous Shenandoah Valley but over the line in Pennsylvania. They are the parents of eight children :
Miss Gale, William, Fred, Millard, Ruth, George, Catherine and Margerita.
HENRY L. BOLLEY, educator and author, was born in Dearborn County, Indiana, February 1, 1865. He completed his early educational training in Purdue University, and since the fall of 1890 has been cou- nected with the North Dakota Agricultural College and Experiment Station. He has served the United States Department of Agriculture as agricultural explorer and field agent in Russia, Holland, and Bel- gium in the interests of flax investigations, and since July, 1909, has been state seed commissioner of North Dakota.
Professor Bolley married Miss Frances Sheldon on the 26th of September, 1896.
WILLIAM SCHUYLER MERCER. There has heen a member of the Mercer family in Peru more than three quarters of a century, and during this long term the name has become associated with all those qualities of sturdy enterprise and useful citizenship which are the best badges of honor in any community.
The family was founded here by Moses Mercer, a native of Licking County, Ohio. He grew up in Ohio, learned the cooper's trade and came when a young man in 1842 to Miami County. He had previously fol- lowed his trade in the City of Wabash, and continued it at Peru, and also had em- ployment as a carpenter. For a number of years he was in the woodworking depart- ment of the old Indianapolis, Peru and Chi- cago Railway, now the Lake Erie and West ern Division of the New York Central lines. Still later Moses Mercer was identified with the Indiana Manufacturing Company. He died honored and respected in 1899. His wife, who died in 1886, was Ann J. Long, daughter of Peter Long, who was a pioneer settler of Logansport. Moses Mercer and wife were two of the original thirteen who organized the first Baptist Church of Peru. Their names are perpetuated on the first roll of membership, and that church is now one of the largest and most influential re- ligions organizations in the Wabash Val- ley. Moses Mercer was also one of the or- ganizers and a charter member of Miami Lodge No. 42, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Peru. In politics he voted as a whig and was one of the first voters in the
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ranks of the republican party. He and his wife had five children: Ado J., May, William S., Georgia and Emmett.
William Schuyler Mercer was born at Peru February 3, 1861, and that city has always been his home with the exception of one year spent in Chicago. He attended the public schools, but at the age of four- teen, in 1875, began work as clerk in the store of Killgore, Shirk & Company. He was with that old and substantial firm twelve years. In 1887 he used his modest capital and experience to enter the grain business with J. A. Neal, under the name Mercer & Neal. This was continued until the spring of 1898, after which for a year Mr. Mercer was in the grain business at Chicago. On returning to Peru he bought a bakery and restaurant, and since that time for nearly twenty years he has given most of his study and his energy to the task of furnishing pure and wholesome food supplies. In 1907 he divided his busi- ness, erecting a modern bakery plant and organizing the firm of Mercer & Company, with his son-in-law, Hazen P. Sullivan, as his partner. The restaurant business was sold in 1911, but the company soon after- ward took on a new line of enterprise when they bought the Sanitary Milk Company. In February, 1912, they bought an ice cream factory, rebuilt it and thoroughly modernized it, and this branch of manu- facture and distribution of milk products is now conducted as the Sanitary Milk and Ice Cream Company.
Mr. Mercer is not only a very popular business man but a citizen who commands the esteem and confidence of the people heyond all partisan lines. This was well exemplified in the political campaign of 1914. He has always been a steadfast and sterling republican. In 1914 Miami County went democratic by 1,500 votes, the republi- can party being split up into factions so that the ticket went to defeat. But in spite of that Mr. Mercer was elected to the State Senate by 208 votes. He was one of the capable men in the State Senate during the following session. Aside from this his only other important public service was as a member of the Peru School Board about twenty years ago. While he was on the board one of the fine ward schools of Peru was erected. Mr. Mercer is a Mason and he and his wife are members of the Baptist Church. December 29, 1881, he married
Miss Sarah E. Fisher, of Mexico, Indiana, daughter f Joseph and Elizabeth (Brower) Fisher. They have one daugh- ter, Vernice E., wife of Hazen P. Sullivan.
ALBERT JANERT is one of the oldest mer- chants in Indianapolis engaged in the wholesale meat business. For many years his location has been 1445 Union Street, where he has built up a large enterprise chiefly in handling wholesale sausage, smoked meats and boiled hams.
Mr. Janert was born in the Province of Posen, Germany, April 7, 1865, son of Julius and Matilda (Fitte) Janert. The parents spent all their lives in Germany. Julius Janert was a game warden. Albert attended school in his native province np to the age of fourteen, after which he served a three years apprenticeship at the butcher's trade. As was the custom, he had to pay for the privilege of learning the trade. At the end of three years he passed his examination and secured a license which would now be equivalent to a union card. The next two years he spent as a master workman in some of the larger towns of Germany, and then came to the United States, landing at New York and being em- ployed in that city for a time. After that he came to Indianapolis to join. his two brothers, William and Herman, who had preceded him. These brothers are now in Alaska. Mr. Albert Janert worked in In- dianapolis for various employers, including Peter Sindlinger and Fred Boertcher. Fol- lowing that he spent some time in the south- west, Oklahoma and Texas. and worked at his trade a few months in Dallas. Return- ing to Indianapolis, Mr. Janert thirty years ago engaged in the butcher business for himself. His first location was on Meri- dian Street, and from there he moved to 1445 Union, where he has developed a large wholesale business, and has taken his sons in with him.
Mr. Janert married Marv Wurster, daughter of Fred Wurster. She is also a native of Germanv. Her four children are: Emma, wife of William Brink, of Indian- apolis, Albert, Otto and Herman, all in business with their father, Otto being book- keeper for the firm.
Mr. Albert Janert is well known in fra- ternal and social affairs being affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Cosmos, the German Butch-
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ers Society, the South Side Turners, of which he was one of the first members and a stockholder, and belongs to the Hoosier Motor Club.
HARRY B. SEAWARD is general manager and superintendent of C. F. Seaward & Sons, Incorporated, one of the most pro- gressive firms in Indiana handling all makes of automobiles, accessories and sup- plies, and operating a garage which in point of accommodation and service is un- surpassed in the state. The Seawards are an old and substantial family of Kokomo in Howard County, and have been in busi- ness there for many years.
Harry B. Seaward was born in that county March 6, 1882, son of C. F. and Dora (Hassell) Seaward. His father was also born in Howard County, and is now president and head of the firm C. F. Sea- ward & Sons. For a number of years C. F. Seaward was engaged in the grain business at Galveston, Indiana, and selling his in- terests there, accumulated during a period of fourteen years, established the present automobile business at Kokomo. The loca- tion of C. F. Seaward & Sons is on Buck- eve Street, on the west side of the Frances Hotel. Mr. C. F. Seaward built in 1912 a building perfect in appointment for the present business. It occupies a space 66 by 132 feet, is absolutely fireproof, of concrete and steel construction on a solid stone foun- dation. The garage furnishes accommoda- tions for 150 automobiles, and the company handles all accessories and supplies. They are Howard County agents for the Chalm- ers, Hudson and Chevrolet cars. The busi- ness was incorporated in 1915 with C. F. Seaward as president.
Harry B. Seaward is the oldest of six children, five of whom are still living. He has been handling many of the responsibili- ties of the firm for the past six or seven years. In 1901, at Galveston, Indiana, he married Miss Minnie Rojetta Morris. Mr. Seaward is a republican, and is affiliated with Galveston Lodge No. 244, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
JUDGE FRANK ELLIS. Honors and dis- tinctions in abundance sufficient to satisfy the ambitions of any man have come to Judge Frank Ellis during his long and active career in Delaware County.
Judge Ellis was born in that county Feb-
ruary 12, 1842, son of Jolin H. and Phoebe (Kirkpatrick) Ellis. Few families possess more emphatic evidence of true American- ism and patriotic loyalty. The Ellises were in America prior to the Revolution. Judge Ellis' great-grandfather, Abraham Ellis, served in the Revolutionary war under Washington. The grandfather, Henry Ellis, was a soldier in the War of 1812. John H. Ellis, father of Judge Ellis, dis- tinguished himself as an officer in the Civil war, as will be told in following para- graphs, while Judge Frank Ellis was also in the war, so that members of four suc- cessive generations participated in all the great wars of this country with the excep- tion of the present European struggle.
John Harbison Ellis, father of Judge Ellis, was born in August, 1817, fourth child of Henry and Charity (Harper) Ellis. He grew to manhood on his father's farm in Greene County, Ohio. As a youth he acquired the trade of carpenter and joiner. In 1838 he became a resident of Delaware County, Indiana, in which local- ity his sister, Nancy Ellis Reed, had pre- viously located. Here he engaged in busi- ness as architect and joiner. He was very expert in the construction of the heavy wooden work of that time, such as barns and bridges. In 1841 he married Phoebe Kirkpatrick, daughter of John and Su- sanna (Lane) Kirkpatrick. His bride had lived in Delaware County since 1834. She was six years his junior, having been born in 1823. Her grandfather, Robert Lane, had a record as a Revolutionary soldier, and afterward settled in Clark County, Ohio.
In 1856 the health of John H. Ellis became impaired and he removed to Mun- cie, county seat of Delaware County. There he was engaged in the practice of law until the breaking out of the Civil war in 1861, when he vigorously took up the work of enlisting men for the Union army. His own health not being good, he was re- jected at the muster, much to the disap- pointment of the men whom he had en- listed and who desired that he should be one of their officers.
In 1862, however, he enlisted another full company "for three years or during the war," and was accepted and mustered in as its captain. This was known as Com- pany B of the Eighty-Fourth Regiment, In- diana Volunteer Infantry, which was mus-
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tered into service September 3, 1862. The services of this regiment present an inspir- ing page in Civil war annals. Capt. John H. Ellis was with his company in faithful service through all the hardships, priva- tions and dangers until his death. On the 20th of September, 1863, at the battle of Chickamauga, on that memorable Sunday afternoon, in an impetuous charge against a superior force the division of which his company formed a part was repulsed, and he was left wounded unto death at the most advanced position reached. But the sacrifice of his life and that of many of his comrades was not in vain, since the histo- rian of the battle has declared that but for the opportune aid furnished by the two brigades of which the Eighty-Fourth Indiana was a part the Federal army could not have been saved from defeat and rout.
One of the sergeants of Company B in the Eighty-Fourth Regiment in that bloody battle of Chickamauga was Frank Ellis, who enlisted as a private in the company under his father in 1862. From the post of sergeant he was promoted on the death of his father to captain of Company B, and served in his stead and place during the remainder of the war. After Chickamauga he was with his company in its campaign in Eastern Tennessee and early in 1864 joined Sherman's army and participated in many of the best known battles of the great Atlanta campaign. After the fall of At- lanta it was with the troops sent in pur- suit of Hood, and was in that command through the concluding battles of the cam- paign, at Franklin and Nashville. Frank Ellis with the rest of his regiment was mustered out at Nashville June 14, 1865, and soon afterward returned home.
While growing to manhood in Delaware County Judge Ellis acquired his education in the public schools and under private in- struction. He was apprenticed to the printer's trade, and worked for two or three of the early county newspapers, be- coming an expert printer. While he was still in the army as captain of Company B of the Eighty-fourth Regiment the people of Delaware County in 1864 elected him to the office of county treasurer. The news of his election did not reach him for some time and his duties as a soldier were such that he could be excused for paying no attention to this civic honor. But when he returned home in the summer of 1865
he found the office still waiting for him, having been carried on by his predecessor. He at once transformed himself from a sol- dier into a county official, and served out the time until 1866. In that year he was renominated on the republican ticket and elected for a succeeding term.
For several years after that Judge Ellis was a grain and lumber merchant at Muncie. As a youth he had picked up con- siderable knowledge of the law, and finally settled down to a serious study of the pro- fession and was admitted to the bar. He has been a member of the Muncie bar for forty years. For twenty years from 1883 he was in partnership with John T. Walter- house.
Many political honors have come to Judge Ellis. He was a member of the Muncie City Council, served four succes- sive terms as mayor, was for two terms city attorney, served as United States com- missioner, and in 1910 was elected judge of the Forty-Sixth Judicial Circuit. He was on the bench for one term, and since re- tiring has resumed the active practice of law.
Judge Frank Ellis has been loyal to the principles of the republican party all his life. He is affiliated with the Masonic Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter, Knight Tem- plar Commandery, has been a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity at Muncie since 1865 and is affiliated with the Grand Army Post and the Sons of Veterans. Outside of his profession he is known as a public spir- ited citizen of Delaware County, and one who supports all worthy enterprises for the good of the community.
D. C. JENKINS, of Kokomo, president of the D. C. Jenkins Glass Company, is a past master of the art and industry of glass making. He has been in the business more than half a century, since early boyhood, and there is not a position he has not filled some time, and not a single detail of ex- perience which he has overlooked. He has given to Kokomo one of its chief industries.
Mr. Jenkins was born at Pittsburg. Penn- sylvania, May 24, 1854, son of David and Elizabeth (Evans) Jenkins. His parents were both natives of Wales. In 1894 David Jenkins and wife removed to Kokomo, and for nine years he was employed in a factory here. He was a man of excellent education, and though never given the privilege of at-
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tending school he mastered two languages, and was a formidable debater on Bible and theological subjects. He spent his last years in California and died in Los Angeles. Of the eight children five are still living, D. C. being the oldest.
D. C. Jenkins attended public schools in Pittsburg a few years, and then went to work as a boy helper in the glass factory of the McKee Brothers in that city. It was fifty-four years ago that he did his first work in a glass factory, and there has been no important period in his life when he has not been a factor in increasing degrees of responsibility in this business. He rose from the ranks of industrial workers, was promoted to a foremanship in the McKee Brothers plant, and was with that concern until he removed to Findlay, Ohio, in the natural gas belt, built a factory, and con- tinued it until 1893, when the plant was sold to the United States Glass Company, the first of the large trusts in this business. From Findlay Mr. Jenkins went to Gas City, Indiana, superintended the erection of a glass plant for the United States Glass Company, and was connected with it one year. He built a large plant in Greentown, and this business was sold to the National Glass Company, Pittsburg. Mr. Jenkins was chairman of the executive committee and general manager for two years of the National Glass Company.
In 1900 he and his two sons came to Kokomo and organized the D. C. Jenkins Glass Company. This company now has an immense plant covering several acres of ground, and manufactures a large and va- ried line of standard special glass ware, including tableware, lantern globes, con- tainers of many kinds, fish globes, display jars, lamp founts, packers goods, etc. The first year the company's business sales amounted to $170,000, and at the present time more than $800,000 worth of their goods are sold and distributed all over the United States and Canada. Mr. D. C. Jen- kins is president of the company, his son Addison is secretary and treasurer, and his son Howard is sales manager. The D. C. Jenkins Glass Company have established a glass plant at Arcadia, Indiana, which has been in continuous operation since its or- ganization.
Mr. . Jenkins was one of the organizers of River Raisin paper mills in 1910, and was the first president and continued in that Vol. V-7
office for six years. The mills are now the largest manufacturers of fibre shipping boxes in the world.
Mr. Jenkins is a loyal republican and has always been interested in the success of his party. He served as a member of the Indiana State Senate from 1910 to 1914. He is now a member of the State Highway Commission of Indiana. Mr. Jenkins is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a Shriner, an Elk and Eagle, and for a num- ber of years was a trustee of Elks Lodge No. 90. He is also a member of the Columbia Club of Indianapolis and the Howard County Country Club, of which he is a director. January 4, 1876, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he married Miss Anna Jones. Their two sons are Addison and Howard.
WILLIAM T. WILSON. Among the men of first rate ability who have been attracted to the law and have been faithful to its best ideals and traditions, one whose name is easily associated with the leaders in Northern Indiana is William T. Wilson of Logansport. Mr. Wilson has been a prac- ticing lawyer forty years, and in that time has earned and richly deserved practically all those honors and successes that are as- sociated with the profession, though he has not, as so many lawyers do, invaded the field of politics.
Mr. Wilson was born at Logansport in 1854, and is the son of one of its pioneer merchants and most esteemed citizens, Thomas H. Wilson. His father was born May 31, 1818, in the Village of Denton, Caroline County, Maryland, sixth among the ten children of John and Sarah (Hop- kins) Wilson. He was of English descent on both sides. Thomas H. Wilson at the age of eleven years, and upon the death of his father, went to live with his uncle and guardian, Thomas Hopkins. He worked in the Hopkins store and mill and gained his business training there. In 1834, at the age of sixteen, he became clerk in a store at Camden, Delaware. One of his employers was Daniel Atwell, who came west and located at Logansport in 1837. Along with him came Thomas H. Wilson, who was already a young man of much rec- ognized force and ability in business af- fairs. In 1840 he became identified with the mercantile house of Pollard and Wilson. In 1843 this firm built a grain warehouse on the Wabash and Erie Canal, and were
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soon known up and down the Wabash Val- ley as leading grain merchants. They also handled large quantities of general mer- chandise and did a forwarding and commis- sion business. In 1853 the firm became Wilson, Merriam & Company. Mr. Wilson finally retired from the firm, but continued privately in the produce trade until 1875. In May, 1865, Thomas H. Wilson was elected president of the Logansport Na- tional Bank, one of the oldest national banks in the Wabash Valley. He filled that office and carefully safeguarded the best in- terests of the institution until his death De- cember 27, 1877. Politically he began vot- ing as a whig, and was identified with the republican party from its organization. He was reared in the faith of the Friends, but was broadly liberal in his support of all the religious causes. He is as well remem- bered for his generosity, kindliness and helpfulness as for the success he gained in business affairs. In 1842 Thomas H. Wil- son married America Weirick, who died three years later. In 1849 Mary A. I. Dex- ter became his wife. She died in 1854. In 1856 he married Elizabeth E. Hopkins, who passed away in 1898. Thomas H. Wilson had four sons, William T., Elwood G., Thomas H. and John Charles.
William T. Wilson was a son of his father's second marriage. As a boy in Logansport he attended the public schools, and is a graduate of Princeton University with the class of 1874. The following year he read law in the office of Hon. D. D. Pratt of Logansport, and was admitted to the bar. Since 1875 his name has been enrolled on the membership of the Cass County bar. Mr. Wilson accepted a place on the Board of Directors of the First Na- tional Bank of Logansport when his father died, and has been a director in that insti- tution forty years. Many other institutions and organizations in Logansport have had the benefit of his direct service and influ- ence. He is a republican when it comes to casting his vote, and he attends the Pres- byterian Church.
In 1880 he married Miss Martha L. Mc- Carty, daughter of Joseph P. McCarty of Logansport. They had four children, Thomas H., who was a lawyer, Elizabeth, wife of Frank H. Worthington, superin- tendent of the Vandalia Railroad at Terre Haute; Joseph, and Dorothy Dexter Wil- son. Of these children only Mrs. Worth-
ington and Dorothy D. Wilson survive. Thomas H. Wilson, Jr., died in 1916, and Joseph W. Wilson lies in one of the graves in France made by the American Expedi- tionary Forces led by General Pershing in 1918.
EUGENE BLACKBURN is one of the inter- esting citizens of Indianapolis, a resident of thirty years standing, and with a record of successful achievement in originating, establishing, building up and developing an industry which is probably the largest in its special field in the United States.
The business today has corporate form and title as the International Metal Polish Company, owning and operating a large plant at Quill Street and the Belt Railway. Mr. Blackburn is president of the company.
He was born at Bloomingdale, Ohio, in 1866, a son of Moses L. and Flora (Arm- strong) Blackburn, also natives of the Buckeye State. For about twenty-five years Eugene Blackburn was connected with the railway mail service, and while with that service established his home and head- quarters at Indianapolis in 1888. He was a veteran in this branch of the postal de- partment, was a faithful and diligent em- ploye, but the main interest of his career attaches to what was at first a side line to his principal work.
In 1903 he began the manufacture of a metal polish of his own composition. He had complete faith in the quality of his product but had to begin partly from wise choice and partly from limited capital on a modest and experimental scale. In fact he manufactured his first polishes at his own home on North Capitol Avenue. For a time he was manufacturer, salesman, dis- tributor, and in fact, "whole works." He built up the reputation of his products on quality and merit, made a careful study of market conditions, and by energy in push- ing his sales eventually made his business self sustaining and sufficient to give him an independent living. All this he accom- plished by his own effort and without the aid of outside capital. Finally he incor- porated as the International Metal Polish Company.
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