USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 21
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the present location of Harting & Company. After a year Mr. Harting bought out Mr. DeHority and then conducted the business alone until 1886. At that date his cousin, S. B. Harding, entered the partnership, known as Harting & Company. In Jan- mary, 1912, William E. Harting acquired an equal partnership, though the name of the firm remains the same.
In March, 1912, the company bought the old Kidwell & Goode flour mill. They have done much to re-equip and modernize this mill and now employ it in connection with the elevator for grinding feed. This firm has done much to establish Elwood in the favor of grain raisers over a territory eight or nine miles in a radius as a grain market and milling center. The firm buys corn, grain, seed, and other supplies from the producers, and besides selling locally ship many carloads every year to such mar- kets as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Cin- cinnati.
Herman G. Harting is still active in bus- iness and is the oldest grain merchant at Elwood. His wife died in May, 1893.
William E. Harting was reared at El- wood, attended public schools there and finished with a business course in the Ma- rion Business College. He was twenty years old when in 1898 he went to work for his father, and has never had any em- ployment outside of the family business. He is now manager of the elevator and mill. He is also a director and stockholder of the Elwood Trust Company, and has some other business interests.
In 1901 he married Miss Margaret Rey- nolds, daughter of Charles L. and Arminda J. . (Cranor) Reynolds of Elwood. They have two children : Jane, born in 1908, and Martha Josephine, born in 1914. Mr. Harting is a democrat, but holding office has never bothered him and has never been an object of his ambition. He is affiliated with Elwood Lodge No. 368, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a Royal Arch Mason. He and his family are members of the First Christian Church.
RAY C. BROCK is a manufacturer of wide experience, and is now president of the Ko- komo Supply Company, jobbers in high grade plumbing supplies and mill supplies. This is one of the concerns that is rapidly bringing Kokomo to prominence as a great industrial center.
Mr. Brock was born at Ionia, Michigan, December 13, 1876, son of John O. and Laura Brock. His father was a native of New York, moved west to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and for a number of years was an active railroad man, and is still active though in advanced years. Ray C. Brock, the younger of two children, was educated in the public schools of Ionia, graduating from high school in 1894. He had his early experience as a manufacturer in the great furniture center of Grand Rapids. For fourteen years he was connected with the furniture factories there, and left that city in 1905 to become superintendent of the Stoltz-Schmitt Furniture Company at Evansville, Indiana. He was in Southern Indiana five years, and in 1910 came to Kokomo as superintendent of the Central Closet Manufacturing Company. In 1914 Mr. Broek assisted in organizing the Ko- komo Supply Company, and has since been its president. A. A. Dunlap is vice presi- dent and Louis F. Fee, secretary and treas- urer. They handle a large volume of bus- iness and distribute much of the material in their line over Northern Indiana.
Mr. Broek is affiliated with the Masonic Order, is a member of the Eagles and served as trustee of the local lodge one year, and is a member of the Travelers Protective Association. Politically he is a republican. September 11, 1896, he mar- ried Miss Lottie Hopkins, daughter of Frank Hopkins of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
MARY OTILDA GOSLEE is an Indiana woman who has rendered long and notable service in her home City of Evansville as public librarian. She has been the admin- istrative head of the Willard Library since it was established, through the generosity of Willard Carpenter, who left upwards of $150,000 for that purpose. The library now contains approximately 50,000 vol- umes.
Miss Goslee, who was born in Evansville, is of French Huguenot ancestry, four brothers of the name having come to America in the seventeenth century. Her grandfather, Dr. Samuel Goslee, was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, was. a well educated physician, and moving to Kentucky for many years served a large clientage first in Jefferson County and later in Oldham County. He also acquired a plantation and owned slaves until he be-
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came converted to abolition principles, and then set his negroes free. He spent his last years in Jefferson County.
Ferdinand Goslee, father of Miss Goslee, was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and became a merchant at Louisville and later in Evansville, where he died when about forty-one years old. He married Ann Amelia Wheeler, who was born in England, daughter of Joseph and Eliza- beth (Early) Wheeler. The Wheeler fam- ily came to America in 1819 and were pio- neers in Vanderburg County, Indiana, where they acquired and improved exten- sive tracts of Government land. Joseph Wheeler was a preacher in the Wesleyan faith in England and did similar service for the Methodist cause in the early days of Southern Indiana. He lived to be eighty-seven and his wife to eighty-nine. Miss Goslee's mother died at the age of eighty-one, the mother of four children: Margaret Louise, wife of Cyrus K. Drew ; Mary Otilda, James S., and Ferdinand.
Mary Otilda Goslee acquired a thorough education in private schools. She became librarian for the Evansville Library Asso- ciation in 1873, and when that was con- solidated with the Willard Library in 1885 she assumed the duties to which she has devoted her time and talents for over thirty years. She is a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
CHARLES HAVEN NEFF is a man of many and prominent connections with the life and affairs of Madison County. As a boy he taught school there, and thirty years ago qualified himself by hard study for the practice of law. The law has not been his regular calling, however, and the profes- sion lost a well trained and highly qualified member when he went into newspaper work. Mr. Neff knows practically every angle of the newspaper game, from com- positor and reporter to publisher and owner. He is vice president, secretary, and business manager of the Herald Pub- lishing Company, publishers of The An- derson Herald, the oldest and most influ- ential republican paper in Madison County.
Mr. Neff is a native of Madison County, born in Fall Creek Township on a farm March 19, 1861, a son of Jesse T. and Sarah (Ulen) Neff. The Neff family is a combination of Swiss and German ances- try. During colonial times in America six
brothers of the name came to this country and established families that soon became widely scattered through the Carolinas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Some of the descendants of these brothers fought as Revolutionary soldiers. Jesse T. Neff was both a farmer and a competent me- chanic. When Charles H. Neff was two years of age the family moved to Pendle- ton and several years later to Anderson. Mr. Neff was educated in the public schools of Anderson, graduating from high school with the class of 1878. That was the third class of the high school. In the meantime during summers he had worked at different occupations, principally as a lather for his father. At the age of seven- teen, after taking an examination and be- ing duly qualified, he began teaching school. He had a country school in Stony Creek Township two years, for two terms was connected with the city schools of An- derson, and another year was principal of the Fisherburg school. His wages as a teacher were carefully saved with a view to the future, and during all his vacations he helped his father. In 1883 Mr. Neff entered Asbury, now DePauw, University at Greencastle, Indiana, and in June, 1887, was graduated Ph. B. and subsequently was given the degree Master of Arts by the same school. While at University he continued his work in the plasterer's trade, assisting his father, but in his junior year at college he entered the office of Howell D. Thompson at Anderson, and spent the entire summer studying law. On return- ing to DePauw he carried both the law and his regular literary courses, and in 1887 was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court upon motion by Senator Turpie. After that he continued his studies at An- derson with Howell Thompson, but in the fall of 1887 was called upon to organize the school system of Alexandria in Madi- son County. After these schools were or- ganized he had charge as principal for two years.
About that time, as a means of employ- ment during one summer, he undertook to handle the sporting page or the sport- ing column rather of the Anderson Bulle- tin, and later took employment with the Herald, then under the editorial direction of John H. Lewis. Once in the newspaper profession he has never seen fit nor has he had any special inclination to get ont.
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He became city editor of the Anderson Herald, was also active local correspondent for the Associated Press, and has been with the Herald through all its various owner- ships for the past thirty years. In 1898 he and E. C. Toner bought the Herald from Wallace B. Campbell. At that time he took the business management, and has handled the buisness affairs of the paper ever since.
Mr. Neff is a stockholder in the Ander- son Banking Company, in the Merchants Fire Insurance Company of Indiana, and has various other business holdings. Politi- cally he has been a republican all his life, though in 1912 he became active in the pro- gressive movement. He has served as a member of the Library Board of Ander- son as chairman of its purchasing com- mittee, is a trustee of the First Methodist Church, and has been a teacher of the Men's Bible Class for a number of years. He belongs to the Phi Kappa Psi frater- nity of DePauw University, to the Ander- son Country Club, the Tourist Club and the Columbia Club of Indianapolis.
In 1894 Mr. Neff married Rosalie Alice Brickley, daughter of Dr. William P. and Julia Brickley. They have two children, Paul Wilbur, born in 1898, and now a stu- dent in DePauw University and Dorothy Elizabeth, born in 1900.
OLLIE H. BUCK, of Kokomo, is a western man in spirit, enterprise and temperament, and his presence in Indiana is a tribute to this great state's industrial opportunities. Mr. Buck is active head of the Worth Wire Works, and is also identified with a num- ber of other local industries and business organizations of Kokomo and elsewhere.
His birth occurred at Waco, McLennan County, Texas, March 12, 1879. His father, Giddings J. Buck, was a native of Louis- ville, Kentucky, and is now deceased. Ollie H. Buck was sixth in a family of eight chil- dren, six of whom are still living.
The first eighteen years of his life were spent quietly at home attending local schools. In 1898 he enlisted for service in the Spanish-American war, as a sergeant in Company H, Second Texas Volunteers. He served from April until November. The regiment was mustered in at Austin, then transferred to Mobile, Alabama, thence to Miami, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, and
then back to Dallas, Texas, where it was mustered out.
For about two years after this brief army service Mr. Buek had an interesting though not altogether agreeable experience for a man of his temper. He was guard and assistant superintendent of a force of state convicts stationed in the rice and sugar growing districts around Eagle Lake, Texas. In 1901 he engaged in cattle ranch- ing, and for two and a half years was lo- cated on the A. H. Pierce ranches in Mata- gorda and Wharton counties in Southern Texas. The next two years he spent as deputy in the sheriff's office at Fort Worth, Texas.
He left his public duties to become man-, ager of the Worth Wire Works, then lo- cated at St. Louis. The main product manufactured by the Worth Wire Works involves an interesting little story which has been published and sent out by the com- pany and which may properly he quoted at this point.
A few years ago a cow puncher working on one of the large cattle ranches in South- west Texas was confronted with the diffi- cult problem of trying to keep in repair a division line fence consisting of three strands of barbed wire, and with posts spaced about fifty feet apart, the scarcity of timber in that section making the price of posts almost prohibitive. He hit upon the idea of taking short pieces of wire and "staying" the line wires at intervals of four or five feet, thus preventing the cat- tle from crawling through the fence.
From that he developed his idea more ingeniously and finally perfected the "Cinch Fence Stay." About that time a friend who had a little money to invest pro- posed that they set up a shop in a small town nearby and manufacture and market the fence stays. It did not take long to demonstrate the merits and economical features of these stays, and it was not a question of selling them but of manufac- turing them in sufficient quantities to fill the orders. The engineers of the United States Government were also attracted to the Cinch Stays, with the result that they were at once specified on various reclama- tion projects. Railroad engineers also recognized their advantages, and today they are used on thousands and thousands of miles of right-of-way fence.
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The first factory for the manufacture of these fence stays was in a wood shed in a small west Texas ranch town. From there it was moved to Fort Worth, and when Mr. Buck went to St. Louis as manager of the Worth Wire Works the business was in its third stage of growth and progress. He conducted it at St. Louis for about seven months. In order to get the factory nearer the source of supplies for the raw wire ma- terial Mr. Buck moved the plant and equipment to Kokomo, locating in a small frame building in the rear of the Kokomo Steel and Wire Company's fence mill. Two years later the Worth Wire Works erected a new factory at 1501 North Wash- ington Street, where its operations have since been conducted under a healthy and steadily increasing growth. Its essential and special product is the wire fence stay above described, which has, as already noted, been extensively adopted by rail- roads throughout the country for right-of- way fencing by the United States Govern- ment in reclamation projects, though the bulk of the great volume of patronage comes from stock raisers, farmers and ranchers in both continents.
Mr. Buck since becoming a resident of Kokomo has identified himself with many other enterprises. He is vice president of the Hoosier Oil Company, now operating branches in Kokomo, Lafayette, Green- town, and Tipton, Indiana. He is a mem- ber of the board of directors of the United Oil & Gas Company of Kokomo, a director and secretary of the Liberty Gas & Oil Company of Kokomo, is general manager and one-third owner in the Kokomo Wrench Company, and is owner and man- ager of the National Products Company of Kokomo.
Patriotic movements of many kinds have made strong appeals to his interest and en- thusiasm. He is Howard County chairman of the American Protective League, is county chairman of the Military Training Camp Association, and county chairman of the War Savings Stamp Committee. He is also on the board of the Howard County Fuel Commission. Other organiza- tions with which he is actively connected are the Kokomo Chamber of Commerce, chairman of its executive committee, the Young Men's Christian Association, on its board of directors, the Travelers' Protec- tive Association, the United Commercial
Travelers, the Order of Elks, in which he is esteemed leading knight, and he is a Ma- son and a Shriner. Mr. Buck is a member of the Christian Congregational Church, and in politics is independent.
GEORGE W. EICHHOLTZ is one of the vet- eran manufacturers and lumbermen of In- diana, a business with which he has been identified for half a century or more, and is senior member of G. W. Eichholtz & Son, wholesale lumber dealers in Indian- apolis.
Mr. Eichholtz was born January 24, 1846, in Wabash County, Indiana, a son of Doc- tor Henry and Sarah (Murray) Eichholtz. His father, who was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, went west to Ohio in early days, and for about six years lived at Kingston in that state, and then acquired 160 acres of raw land in the wilder- ness of Wabash County, Indiana, and cleared up and by perseverance developed an excellent farm. He was a man of rare talents and of tireless energy, so that his achievements and experiences were by no means of a usual character. He was a well grounded physician and practiced the pro- fession for a number of years. He handled his farm with much success and also en- gaged in manufacturing, and here found vent for a genius which would have made him a very successful architect. He had great capacity in handling all kinds of machinery and was an excellent artist, though he had little training in that profes- sion. He could take a pen or pencil, and with a few strokes depict the face of an acquaintance, and he was also equally gifted in mechanical drawing. In 1849 he started west for California, but on the way he was taken ill and returned home by New Orleans. His home was in Wabash County, on the farm, from 1842 until 1882, when he removed to North Manchester, and died in that city in 1886. He was a mem- ber of the English Lutheran Church, and at one time served as trustee of Wittenberg College at Springfield, Ohio. In 1856 he. left his party, the democratic, refusing to vote for James Buchanan, and afterward was a steadfast republican. He celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his membership as a Mason in Deming Lodge No. 88 at North Manchester. Considering the times in which he lived it is very significant and a testimony to his strength of will and
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character that he was absolutely temperate and was never known to take a drink of intoxicating liquor. He was twice married. His first wife was Margaret Barr of Penn- sylvania, who died in 1839, and all her children are deceased. For his second wife he married Sarah A. Murray, who died in 1906. Her four children were: Maria E., George W., Caroline C. and Adaline A.
George W. Eichholtz as a boy attended school in a little log building, which, how- ever, was one of the best in which the schools of Wabash County was then housed. He received most of his education by per- sonal experience. He was at home with his father until twenty-three, and became as- sociated with the elder Eichholtz in manu- facturing. His father had established a cabinet factory in Pleasant Township of Wabash County, and manufactured all kinds of furniture in addition to sash, doors, and blinds. The factory was sup- plied with power from a water mill. The son had many of the responsibilities of its management until 1869. In that year he took up the manufacture of a patent churn, which he sold extensively among the farmers of Indiana and Illinois. In 1874 he began the manufacture of a churn of his individual invention, and this he ex- ploited with even greater success than the previous churn. In 1876 he formed a partnership with Lewis Petry and J. J. Valdenaire under the name Eichholtz, Pe- try & Valdenaire. In 1877 this company besides manufacturing churns began a gen- eral lumber business, installing a complete saw mill. Later they built two other saw mills, one at Goshen, Indiana, and one at Des Moines, Iowa.
In 1884 Mr. Eichholtz sold his interests and soon afterward accepted a position as traveling representative for a Muskegon lumber firm. He sold lumber on a commis- sion basis and built up and developed a very large sales territory for the firm. In order to have a more central location from which he could attend to his trade, Mr. Eichholtz moved to Indianapolis in Au- gust, 1892. In 1906 he formed a partner- ship with his son Charles under the name Eichholtz & Son, and they now confine themselves to the wholesale lumber busi- ness, specializing in yellow pine lumber and red cedar shingles, and distribute the prod- ucts of some of the largest manufacturing firms in the country to the retail yards of
their territory around Indianapolis. The offices of G. W. Eichholtz & Son are in the Lemcke Building.
Mr. Eichholtz is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, is a republican and belongs to the English Lutheran Church. November 7, 1869, at Silver Lake, Indiana, he married Miss Martha Linn. Mrs. Eich- holtz died March 17, 1893, the mother of four children. The three now living are Ida A., Eva A., and Charles V. April 8, 1898, Mr. Eichholtz married Mary E. Waid- laich, of Columbia City, Indiana.
The son Charles V. since early manhood has been active in the lumber business, and now carries the heavier responsibilities of G. W. Eichholtz & Son. On October 14, 1907, he married Miss Clara Peckman.
ALBERT A. BARNES. Of this venerable citizen, a resident of Indianapolis more than half a century, and still president of the Udell Works, it is possible to write a record with that finality afforded by the near approach of fourscore years of age and with the certainty that none of the facts here set down or judgments pro- nounced will ever be controverted.
A human life is interesting for its ex- periences, its solved problems, its duties and responsibilities discharged, and the expression of those living and vital ele- ments of character as well as its practical action. On all these points Albert A. Barnes is a notable figure in Indiana citi- zenship.
He was born at Stockbridge, Vermont, February 14, 1839. His parents, Joseph and Eliza (Simpson) Barnes, were people in humble circumstances and had ten chil- dren. When Albert was five years of age his parents removed to Springfield, Massa- chusetts. which was his home until he was ten. With many mouths to feed, the abil- ity and enterprise of the father soon fell short of satisfying even the simpler neces- sities, and necessity brought the children on to the stage of serious action without regard for their tender years. As one source of revenue to defray the expenses of the family Albert was selling candy and peanuts at the age of six. At nine he began working on a horse ferry over the river at Holyoke, that employment being termi- nated when the ferry was destroyed by floods. He also worked in a sawmill and stave factory at Winchester, New Hamp-
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shire, until he was eleven. It would be a difficult matter for even Mr. Barnes to re- count all the varied activities and employ- ments of his youthful years. Until he was twenty-one he had exceedingly limited op- portunities to attend school, and reached manhood with only the ability to read and write and figure. At twelve he became an employe in a woolen factory. There was in him even at that age the quality of fidelity and industry which makes advancement and promotion certain. At the age of six- teen he was second overseer in the factory. But the factory was on the decline, and in the meantime Mr. Barnes' father had be- come incapacitated for hard work. The son therefore led the family as its chief executive head to a farm in New Hamp- shire, and resorted to the hard and toil- some process of wringing a living from the stony soil of New England. Mr. Barnes' memory can hardly recall a time when he did not have responsibilities in advance of his years, and practically from the age of nine he was carrying a large share of the family support upon his young shoulders. His mother was the di- recting head of the family, and to her he turned over all his earnings. After one year on the farm he left it with his mother and the other children, and then went to Springfield, Massachusetts, to learn the art of photography. That art was then in its crude infancy and the photographer was chiefly a daguerreotype artist. Having mastered the fundamental principles of the art Mr. Barnes took one of the old fash- ioned traveling photograph cars, drawn by horses, traveled about various sections of New England, and for a time he also had a studio on Broadway in New York City and at Providence, Rhode Island.
In 1860. at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Barnes came West, opening a photograph studio at Rockford, Illinois. While at Rockford on April 2, 1861, he married Abby C. Clayton. He removed his photo- graph business to Beloit, Wisconsin, and while living there was drafted for the army, but on account of his own heavy family responsibilities, still contributing to the support of his parents as well as his own household. he hired a substitute. Leaving his wife to run the gallery at Beloit, he went south for the purpose of photographing war scenes at Murfreesboro and Nashville, Tennessee.
Returning in the spring of 1864, Mr. Barnes soon afterward came to Indian- apolis. Here he established a gallery on Washington Street, at the present site of the New York store. Doubtless there are some old fashioned photographs much cherished by families living in Indian- apolis the product of Barnes, the Photog- rapher, who was in that business here until 1867.
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