USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 20
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In 1884, at Kirkwood, Missouri, Anna Sneed was married to John G. Cairns, arch- itect.
THOMAS FERGUSON is the present county auditor of Vigo County. He has spent all his life in that county and is a man who has had almost constant communion with honest toil as a means of providing for himself and his family. He is very popul- lar among all classes of citizens and has enjoyed many honors at the hands of his fellow men.
He was born in the southeastern part of Vigo County February 1, 1874, a son of John F. and Louisa R. (Bonham) Fergu- son. Both parents were natives of Ohio, the father born in 1840 and the mother in 1845. They came to Vigo County when young, were married here, and then lo- cated on a farm in Pierson Township, where the father continued his industrions station as an agriculturist until his death in 1889. The widowed mother is still liv- ing in Terre Haute. There were two sons: B. Hanley and Thomas.
Thomas Ferguson grew up on the home farm, attended the local public schools, and at the age of sixteen, when his father died, . he went to work in the coal mines. It was as a coal miner that he earned his living for twenty years and during that time he made himself a man of power and influence among the coal workers in the western part of the state.
While living in Lost Creek Township he was elected trustec, and filled that office six years. Ile was still in office when elected county auditor in 1914. His term as andi-
tor began in 1916. He has proved a most capable and faithful public official and has ordered and administered the affairs of the auditor's office in a manner to satisfy the most exacting critics, and it may be added his host of friends are behind him in his candidacy for the office of sheriff of Vigo County in the coming election of 1920. When the little village in which he for- merly made his home was incorporated he was elected one of its first council.
Mr. Ferguson is an active democrat, is a member of the Masonic Order, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Or- der of Odd Fellows, the Loyal Order of Moose, the Improved Order of Red Men, and the Eagles, and his wife is a member of the auxiliary bodies of these various fra- ternities. Mr. Ferguson is also secretary and treasurer of the Laish Road Machine Company, a well known firm manufactur- ing road grading and other road making machinery.
In 1893 Mr. Ferguson married Stella M. Baker, who died May 14, 1908, the mother of two sons, Earl Mitchell, aged fourteen, and Paul a boy of nine. On November 24, 1908, Mr. Ferguson married Blanch E. Moore, of Vigo County.
WILLIAM GAGE HOAG. A member of the Indianapolis bar ten years, William Gage Hoag has emphasized the business side of his profession and has been identified with the organization and management of sev- eral well known Indianapolis corporations.
A resident of Indianapolis since early boyhood, he was born in Virginia June 27, 1884, a son of Dr. W. I. and Mary Louise (Watson) Hoag. His father, who was horn in Cayuga County, New York, August 11, 1858, was educated for the medical pro- fession in the New York Medical School of Cornell University. After fifteen years of general practice at Sherwood, New York, he came west and located at Indianapolis, where he has been a prominent and well known physician for twenty-one years. His home is at 2627 West Washington Street. Doctor Hoag and wife have two children, William G. and Minerva, the lat- ter the wife of Irvin W. Collins, a build- ing contractor of Indianapolis.
William Gage Iloag first attended the Sherwood Select School in New York, Friends Academy, Oakwood Seminary at Union Springs, New York, and in 1902
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graduated from Shortridge High School at Indianapolis. He then entered the Uni- versity of Michigan, graduated A. B. with the class of 1906, and received his LL. B. degrees from the University of Michigan Law School in 1908. He is a member of the law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta.
From 1908 to 1910 he was one of the law clerks in the office of Means & Buenting in the State Life Building, and from 1910 to 1915 was connected with the firm of Holtz- man & Coleman in the Lemcke Annex. Since 1915 he has been alone in general practice, with offices in the Fidelity Trust Building.
Mr. Hoag was one of the organizers and is secretary of the North Side Im- provement Association. He is secretary of the Granite Construction Company, a building company; vice president of the Progress Investment Company, a holding company for farm lands; and organized and is now secretary and treasurer and gives most of his time to the Aetna Mort- gage and Investment Company.
There is one section of the general pub- lic that knows Mr. Hoag neither as a law- yer or business man, but as a champion tennis player. While in the University of Michigan he was captain of the tennis team of 1908. He has kept up the sport in spite of the heavy demands of a professional career, and in 1914 won the state cham- pionship of Indiana and in 1915 the City of Indianapolis championship. He is a member of the Indianapolis Tennis Asso- ciation, a member of the Athaneum, the Marion Club and the Odd Fellows Associa- tion. He is a republican, and has no ac- tive affiliation with a religious denomina- tion.
June 28, 1913, Mr. Hoag married Miss Elizabeth O'Brien, daughter of Bernard M. and Elizabeth (Dalton) O'Brien of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mrs. Hoag was educated in the Sacred Heart Academy at Grand Rapids and the Ypsilanti Normal and in the University of Michigan. They have two children, Robert William, born December 29, 1914, and William Isaac, born March 21, 1916.
FRED MILLER. Any man who builds up and maintains successfully year after year and in the face of all sorts of conditions a successful and growing business possesses qualities that are unusual and admirable.
Over thirty years ago Fred Miller, a young baker, started a bake shop in Evans- ville. In the first place he knew his trade, and in all the years of his success has never lost sight of quality as the thing to be chiefly emphasized. He has also been steady-going, foresighted, alert to oppor- tunity, and has gradually expanded his enterprise until it is one of the largest, most modern and best appointed wholesale and retail bakeries and stores in Southern Indiana.
Mr. Miller was born in the Village of Eckelsheim, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. His father, Nicholas Miller, a native of the same locality, learned the butcher's trade and followed it in his native land until 1867, when, accompanied by his family, he came to the United States. He landed at New York, where he joined a brother who had come over some years before, but soon left to come to Evansville. From Evansville he went to Posey County, In- diana, and was in business there about six years. Returning to Evansville, he re- mained a resident of that city until his death at the age of fifty-six. He married Margaret Espenscheit, who died at the age of sixty-two. Fred Miller, one of six chil- dren, was nine years old when his parents came to America. The education began in German schools was continued in English schools in the rural districts of Posey County, Indiana. Besides what he could learn from books he acquired much train- ing and experience of value to him in later years by assisting his father. At the age of sixteen he entered upon an appren- ticeship to the baker's trade, and served four years, learning all the constituted technical processes involved in this, one of the oldest and one of the most important occupations of man. At the end of four years he had managed by the exercise of a great deal of thrift and economy to ac- cumulate a modest capital of $500. It was used to give him an independent business start. His first shop was at No. 1 Carpen- ter Street. Eight years later, his business having grown, he removed to 603 Main Street, and in 1907 came to his present quarters on South Sixth Street. The bus- iness is now housed in a commodious brick building two stories high, 144 feet in front and 155 feet in depth, and the bakery is equipped with every modern appliance for the production of wholesome sanitary food
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products. He also runs a large retail store in connection, and as a wholesaler supplies bread and other bakery products over a country many miles in a radius around Evansville.
Out of his prosperity as a business man Mr. Miller has also erected two fine apart- ment houses on adjoining lots facing Lo- cust Street. He is a director of the Amer- ican Trust Company Bank at Evansville, is active in the Chamber of Commerce, and he and his wife and family belong to St. John's Evangelical Church. In March, 1889, Mr. Miller married Verona Detroy. She was born at Evansville, daughter of Peter and Katherine (Hofman) Detroy. To Mr. and Mrs. Miller were born four children : Alma, Fred, Jr., Margaret, and Oscar.
LUTHER M. GROSS is well known in Mad- ison County, Indiana, was formerly a county official in Grant County, and is now cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Elwood. Mr. Gross found it incumbent upon him at an early age to make his own way in the world, and right thriftily and energetically has he fulfilled this destiny.
He was born in Owen County, Kentucky, on a farm, December 31, 1874, son of Wil- liam B. and Elizabeth (O'Banion) Gross. His people were early settlers in Southern Tennessee, and the family as far back as the record goes have been farmers. Wil- liam B. Gross died on his homestead in Kentucky in 1895, and the widowed mother is still living, making her home at Elwood, Indiana.
Luther M. Gross had only the advantages of a few winter terms of school in Owen County, Kentucky. Otherwise his services were in demand in the fields assisting his father raise tobacco, which is one of the chief crops. Subsequently he took a busi- ness course at the Agricultural and Me- chanical Business College at Lexington, Kentucky, and about the time he reached his majority moved to Indiana and settled in Grant County. For five years he was deputy county clerk there, and his evident qualifications and his growing influence in the democratic party finally put him on the ticket as candidate for county clerk, an office to which he was elected and in which he served four years. He was defeated for re-election by only sixty votes.
In 1905 Mr. Gross came to Elwood, In-
diana, and for two years was in the time- keeping department of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company. He left that in- dustry to take a position as bookkeeper with the Citizens State Bank, and in Jan- uary, 1913, was elected cashier to succeed Charles Osborne. He is also one of the directors and stockholders of this solid financial institution in Madison County and has various other business interests.
In October, 1894, Mr. Gross married Laura Lee Lemon, daughter of John A. and Georgia (Lowe) Lemon of Williams County, Kentucky. Her father for many years was county superintendent of schools in that county. Mr. Gross has recently attained the proud distinction of being a grandfather, though he is himself hardly in middle life. His only son, William J., born in 1896, married in November, 1916, Angelina Rogers, daughter of Samuel Rog- ers, and their young son, Frederick Mark, was born in January, 1918.
Mr. Gross was elected a member of the City Council at large for Elwood in 1913 and served one term. He is now a mem- ber of the City Park Board. He has held various offices in Elwood Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, is a member of the Improved Order of Red Men, and he and his family are active in the First Baptist Church.
OMER F. BROWN has long been well and favorably known in Howard County, his native county. He recently completed a term of service as sheriff, and is now assist- ant superintendent of the Indiana State Farm, Greencastle, Indiana.
Mr. Brown represents a pioneer Indiana family and was born in Howard County, July 31, 1881, son of J. F. and Anna (Carr) Brown. His great-grandfather, Hampton Brown, was born in the Territory of Indiana, son of Robert Brown, a native of England and a minister of the Quaker Church. Robert Brown was the Quaker minister among the Indians around Vin- cennes, and his son Hampton was born in the locality known as "Indian Camp." Robert Brown subsequently went to Ohio, and he spent his last years there. Hamp- ton Brown grew up and married in Ohio, settled in Wayne County, Indiana, and about 1847 came to Howard County and laid out the town which he named in honor of his son Jerome. He and his sons built
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the first mill in that part of the county. Hampton Brown died at a good old age in 1871.
One of his children was Harvey Brown, who came from Rush County, Indiana, to Howard County in 1851, and at Jerome en- gaged in stock dealing. He lived there un- til his death in 1902. He was a prominent man of his day, and had the confidence of the people of the entire county. He was a very successful farmer and a stanch re- publican. He filled out an unexpired term as county treasurer of Howard County. He was for many years a member of the Methodist Church.
J. F. Brown, father of Omer Brown, was born in Howard County, and in early life entered merchandising at Jerome and sub- sequently moved to Greentown. He was ? merchant for thirty years, and is now liv . ing retired at the age of sixty-two. He is a Methodist and a republican. Of his children only two are now living.
Omer Brown was educated in the public schools of Greentown and in the Marion Normal Business College, graduating in 1904. He was associated with his father in merchandising for eight years under the name Brown & Son. He was called from the management of the store in 1914 by the vote of the people of Howard County and entered upon the duties of sheriff at the age of thirty-two. His official term ex- pired January 1, 1919, and in the mean- time he had been appointed assistant sup- erintendent of the Indiana State Farm at Greencastle.
Mr. Brown is a member of Greentown Lodge No. 347, Ancient Fee and Accepted Masons, the Knights of Pythias, is a Meth- odist and a republican. He married Miss Daisy Campbell. They have two daugh- ters, Helen and Lillian.
CHARLES WOLFF, a real estate man of Michigan City and for many years an ac- tive farmer in that vicinity, is one of the few surviving men who can talk intimately of personal experience in the far West when progress of civilization was beset on every hand by the obstacles of nature and the perils of Indian warfare.
Mr. Wolff was born in Prussia, Germany, in February 1846, but has lived in the United States more than sixty years. His father, Carl Wolff, was also a native of Prussia. where his parents spent all their Vol. V-8
days. Carl Wolff attended school to the age of fourteen, then served an apprentice- ship at the carpenter's trade, and followed it as his occupation in Germany until 1856, when he brought his wife and eight chil- dren to America. They made the passage on a sailing vessel named Donau, under Captain Myers, and were five weeks and three days on the ocean. Landing at New York they pushed on westward to Wayne County, Michigan, buying a tract of land fourteen miles west of Detroit. A log cabin and a small cleared space constituted the improvements. The log cabin was the first home of the Wolff family in America. Carl Wolff gave his time to clearing the land and tilling the soil. There was but little demand for either wood or Inmber, and great maple logs were rolled together and burned. Some years later the Wolff family moved to the south- western corner of Michigan in Berrien County, where Carl Wolff bought an eighty acre farm in Buffalo Township. That was his home for twenty-eight years, and he spent his last days in Michigan City, where he died in 1908, at the venerable age of ninety-three. He married Elizabeth Hile- min, who died in 1906, aged also ninety- three years. Their children were named Caroline, Ricca, Gustav, Charles, Edmond, Amelia, and William. The mother by a former marriage also had a son, named John Conrad.
Charles Wolff was ten years old when his parents came to this country. He had at- tended school in Germany and was also a pupil in a log cabin school in Wayne County, Michigan. At the age of eighteen he left home and began to make his own way in the world. Following the course of the Union Pacific and the Northern Pa- cific Railroad he eventually arrived in San Francisco, but remained on the Pacific ccast only a short time before he returned home, passing through Kansas City, which was then a very small town. He reached Michigan in the spring of 1868, and in April, 1869, was again on his way to the West in the employ of the Northern . Pa- cific Railroad. He went to the Red River of the North at a time when Northern Minnesota and the Dakotas were an almost unexplored territory, having only a few scattered settlements along the stream. In 1870 he preempted a tract of Government land in North Dakota. There was no rail-
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road within miles, and while looking after his land he also used his team and wagon for freighting. In 1873 he had charge of the freight train that went West with General Custer for exploration of the Big Horn Mountain country in Montana. In 1874 he was in the Black Hills expedition. All these expeditions were franght with many adventures and hardships. At one time Mr. Wolff's wagon train was con- fronted by a stream about twelve feet wide and eight feet deep, with a rapid current of water. His wagons were loaded with boxes of bacon. He had to solve a prac- tical engineering problem without undue delay, and he ordered his men to unload the bacon and place it in the stream, ef- fecting a temporary dam and bridge over which the teams crossed successfully. The boxes of bacon were then taken up and reloaded without injury to the meat. Mr. Wolff was also with General Custer's freight train in 1876 when Custer was on his last expedition. The general and his troops left the train at midnight, and the following day were beset by the Indians and massacred practically to a man. The freight train had a gnard of forty soldiers and started at daylight, but after going about a mile were surrounded bv Indians, and a halt was called and the soldiers and drivers dug themselves in and stood a siege for two weeks before being relieved by General Cook and taken to the Black Hills. Mr. Wolff did not receive his pay from the Government for this service until two years later.
In the meantime he had enough of the perils and adventures of the far West. and returning East he bought a farm in Mich- igan Township, three miles from Michigan City. He was steadily engaged in its man- agement and tilling until 1900, when he inoved to Michigan City and entered ilic real estate business.
In 1877 Mr. Wolff married Miss Caro- line Cook. She was born in Wayne County, Michigan, where her parents, Fe- lix and Elizabeth Cook, natives of Saxony, were early settlers. Mrs. Wolff died in 1884, mother of two children, Ora, now de- ceased, and Clarissa, wife of George Davis. In 1886 Mr. Wolff married Ida Cook, who was born in Michigan City, a daughter of Charles and Charlotte Cook. They have four children : William C .; Laura, a kin- dergarten teacher ; Arthur; and Alta. The
son Arthur was with the American Expe- ditionary Forces in France.
OMER U. NEWMAN, who during twenty- five years of active membership in the Marion County Bar has achieved state wide prominence as an Indiana lawyer, is not the only member of this old and prominent family to achieve some degree of special distinction. The Newmans were among the pioneers of Miami County, and some of the finest farming land in that section of the state was developed through their enter- prise, and much of it is still owned by the descendants, the Indianapolis lawyer him- self having some extensive interests as a farmer and stockman in addition to his regular calling and profession.
Omer U. Newman was born in Cass County, Indiana, February 22, 1868, son of Thomas I. and Kate E. L. (Junkin) Newman.
His great-grandfather was Jonathan Newman, one of six brothers who lived in Tennessee. They belonged to the planting and slaveholding class of that state, but finally became convinced of the iniquity of slavery, freed their negroes and moved to the free lands of Ohio, where they became ranged in sympathies and influence with the most ardent of the abolitionists.
The grandfather of the Indianapolis lawyer was Samnel K. Newman, who was born in Ohio March 19, 1819. In 1836 when he was seventeen years old, he walked all the way from Dayton, Ohio, to Logans- port, Indiana, and on arriving had barely enough money to pay his tavern bill. He went to Logansport because his uncle, Elijah Cox, was at that time living on one of the hackwoods farms of Miami County. Here Samuel K. Newman later started to make a home of his own, hewing it out of the dense forest on the south side of Eel river, fourteen miles east of Logansport. While he had nothing to begin with except his industry and some unusual qualities of character, he accumulated a large for- tune for that time, represented chiefly in the ownership of farm land. While he made his first purchases of land from the difficult savings of manual labor, he also relied upon his unerring judgment and skill as a trader. It is said that he was a man of marked but never offensive pecu- liarities. When he advanced an opinion hearers wonld listen intently. In the course
Quer 21. Newman
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of time he became known as the largest landed proprietor in Miami County, and owned much property in cities as well. His farm lands he used for stock raising, and he was one of the noted raisers of live- stock in that section of the state.
He was twice married, but had only one child. The mother of his only son was Lydia Ann Harman, who was born in Jan- uary, 1824. and died December 20, 1877. Her people were also early settlers in Miami County from Ohio. Samuel K. New- man died December 5, 1902.
His son, Thomas I. Newman, was born October 2, 1845, in Miami County, and ac- quired a liberal education, partly in the public schools of Miami County and later in the Union Christian College at Merom, Indiana. For many years his chief activ- ity was improving the many properties of his father, and he was known as a. man of advanced ideas, and especially proficient in livestock husbandry. He died in August, 1911. Kate Junkin, his wife, was born May 9. 1848. and died December 12, 1899. They were the parents of five children : Omer U .: Olive. who married J. H. Fidler ; Samuel I .; William Turner; and Medford Kyle.
Omer U. Newman, the oldest of the children, was educated in the common schools of Miami County, and also attended the Union Christian College at Merom. He was a student in DePauw University, and graduated from the Indiana Law School at Indianapolis with the class of 1895. Up to the age of twenty he lived in close contact with the rural conditions of Miami County. He then began the study of law, and entered upon practice in 1894 at Indianapolis. Mr. Newman has never had a partnership in the law, but has had without doubt more than his share of legal business in the Indiana courts. Many years ago he and Mr. Harding appeared as counsel for defense in behalf of the dyna- mite conspirator. Mr. Newman has repre- sented several large corporations.
Like his father and grandfather before him he has been a stanch republican, but never held a public office until he was elected in November, 1918, as state repre- sentative from Marion County. His elec- tion brought to the General Assembly the services of one of the best qualified law- yers and a man of the highest character of citizenship. Mr. Newman is affiliated with
the Lodge, Chapter and Council of Ma- sonry and with the Improved Order of Red Men. He married Miss Mary Etta Larr daughter of David Larr of Merom, Indiana. They have three children: Lura Vadda, Roscoe Larr and Paul Irvin.
ANDY ADAMS, author, was born on the 3d of May, 1859, on a farm, and his early educational training was received in a cross-roads country school in Whitley County, Indiana. He early followed the cattle trails in Texas, Indian Territory, and Montana, mined in Cripple Creek, Color- ado, and at Goldfield, Nevada, and expe- rienced in full the life of the frontier. But it is as an author that his name has be- come known to the public, and among his works may be mentioned "The Log of a Cowboy," "A Texas Matchmaker," "The Outlet," "Cattle Brands," "Reed An- thony, Cowman," and "Wells Brothers."
WILLIAM E. HARTING is manager of Harting & Company, grain and feed mer- chants at Elwood. He entered the business working for his father twenty years ago, and his snecess is probably due to the fact that he has concentrated all his time and energies in one partienlar line.
Mr. Harting was born at Elwood June 26, 1878, son of Herman G. and Martha (Mock) Harting. He is of German ances- try. His grandfather, Hiram Harting, came from Germany abont 1838 and was followed soon afterward by his wife who was on the ocean in an old fashioned sail- ing vessel six weeks between Europe and America. They settled in Wayne County, Indiana, near Liberty, and took up Gov- ernment land there. In 1851 they moved to a farm of 160 acres northeast of Elwood, and Grandfather Harting in the course of years of labor and good management be- came one of the large land owners in this section. Herman G. Harting had eight brothers and sisters. He was born in Wayne County, Indiana, and in early life worked for his father, but finally moved to a farm of his own of eighty acres in Madi- son Connty. He remained there with the farm and its cultivation until 1878, when he came to Elwood and bought the interest of Mr. Green in the firm of DeHority & Green, proprietors of the grain elevator. The firm was then reorganized as Harting & DeHority, and they were in business at
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