USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 33
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On September 28, 1881, Mr. Dye married Miss Maud Britton, daughter of James and Anna (Gill) Britton of Newark, Ohio. Mr. Dve and family reside at Monticello, In- diana. They have two daughters, Lula E. and Edna A. Lula is the wife of J. R. Gardner and Edna is the wife of E. L. Gardner. E. L. Gardner is a major in the Army Reserve Corps at Camp Lee, Vir- ginia. J. R. Gardner is associated with Mr. Dye under the firm name of Dye & Gardner, general hardware, automobiles and accessories.
Mr. and Mrs. Dve are members of the Christian Science Church. He is a demo- erat in polities and is a Royal Arch Mason and Shriner.
CHARLES J. WACKER, who was born in Indianapolis April 6. 1880, has proved himself so keenly alive to his opportunities
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and has made such vigorous and effective use of them and of his own talents and abilities that today he ranks as one of the principal general contractors in the city, with general offices in the Chamber of Commerce Building and with a splendid organization representing a large amount of capital, machinery and tools, and an organization of expert men capable of han- dling almost any contract in the building line.
Mr. Wacker was born at the old home of his parents in North Indianapolis on Thirtieth Street. His father is August Wacker, who has for many years been en- gaged in developing and building up In- dianapolis and has specialized in construct- ing homes on property owned by him, sell- ing the finished improvement. Charles J. Wacker spent the first fifteen years of his life at his father's country residence or farm in what is now Riverside Park. The next three years he was learning a trade in a blacksmith shop in Haughville, and became a very proficient and expert black- smith and horseshoer. He abandoned the trade to go to work for his father in build- ing homes. He made a close study of building operations, and had opportunity to perfect his abilities during such work as excavating for foundations, laying ce- ment sidewalks or walls for houses, and gradually his experience enabled him to take larger and more important contracts and develop into the general contracting business.
His first real contract was for the con- struction of the Shelter House at Riverside Park. He then built a Shelter House at Military Park, and from that his program of work has been constantly varied and has assumed almost enormous proportions. Among more extensive contracts handled by him should be mentioned the following : The T. B. Laycock plant; additions to the Parry manufacturing plant; excavation for the Meridian Street Church; drop forge works; St. Vincent's Hospital; ad- dition to the Methodist Hospital; Castle Hall on Ohio Street; part of the Indiana News Building on North Senate Avenue; J. B. Bright wholesale coffee house; Oaks Manufacturing Company plant on Roose- velt Avenue; Polk Milk Company garage; City Baking Company plant at Sixteenth and Bellefontaine; Indianapolis Baking Company on Vermont Street; Wabash
Packing Company plant on Dakota and Ray ; Oliver Chilled Plow Works warehouse at Donalson and Norwood; Meridian Hotel; Judah Peckham Building on North Capitol ; Memorial Fountain at University Park; Indianapolis Heat & Light Build- ing on Kentucky Avenue; Terre Haute Theater at Eighth and Main. A some- what unusual contract now in process of fulfillment is the construction of a huge Dutch windmill, built almost entirely out of concrete, located at Miami, Florida, and owned by Carl Fischer.
As this brief record of business shows Mr. Wacker is a thoroughly progressive man of extraordinary energy and of un- usual business equipment. He is one of the prominent members of the Builders & Contratcors Association of Indian- apolis, and is a member of the Canoe Club and the Turnverein.
EDWIN W. KEIGHTLEY was born in Van- Buren County, Indiana, in 1843. He be- gan the practice of law in St. Joseph County, Michigan, and was elected as a representative to the Forty-fifth Congress. After retiring from office he resumed the practice of law in Constantine, Michigan.
CHARLES B. MANN is one of the live and enterprising business men of Anderson, proprietor of the Charles B. Mann Com- pany, operating a high class musical mer- chandise store on Meridian Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets. He has the ex- clusive agency in Madison County of the Baldwin Piano Company.
He is a son of Louis C. and Martha (Brown) Mann of Floyd County, Indiana, where Charles B. Mann was born on a farm in 1874. He is of English ancestry, and some of his forefathers came to this coun- try about the time of the Mayflower.
As a boy Mr. Mann had the advantages of the public schools of New Albany, In- diana, and he also attended DePauw Col- lege at New Albany. After leaving college he went to work helping his father in a dry goods store, and with the advantage of ex- perience and a modest capital he soon started a business of his own, which he conducted quite profitably for a time. He next engaged in the grocery trade for two years.
About this period he married Miss Julia O'Connell, daughter of William and Ellen
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O'Connell of Louisville, Kentucky. After his marriage Mr. Mann was employed for two years as an instructor of boxing and general athletics at Purdue University. He has always been an athlete and has kept up a live interest in this subject even to the present time. For two years Mr. Mann was located at Louisville, Kentucky, as local agent for the Metropolitan Insurance Company, but in February, 1917, removed to Anderson and established his own music house, obtaining the Madison County agency of the Baldwin Company. He de- veloped the business so rapidly that at the end of six months he had to move his store to larger quarters. Mr. Mann is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of An- derson and in politics is independent.
JOHN B. NEU, now living in Indianapolis practically retired from active business pursuits, is deserving of especial mention among the older citizens of Indiana. His business career has been honorable, his par- ticipation as an American of foreign birth is creditable, particularly his service as a Union soldier, and in all the relationships of a long life he has proved himself worthy.
Born in Germany, he came to America when a boy, and with the firm resolution to make this country his home. He learned. the language and customs of the people, and then put his loyalty to test by volun- teering as a soldier in the Union army. After the war he learned the chair maker's trade, and about 1880 engaged in this line of business for himself as a manufacturer at Indianapolis. His business affairs pros- pered and his plant grew with himself in active charge. About 1906 he turned over the business to his two sons, and is now re- tired. The business is now operated under the name J. B. Neu's Sons.
Mr. Neu has never taken any active part in politics except to vote for principles and measures rather than according to the die- tates of a party creed. He is a member of the Catholic Church.
He married Catherine Wentz. The nine children constituting their family are : William J. ; Catharine ; Lena and Margaret, both deceased; Clara; Annie. deceased : Laura ; Ida, Mrs. Edward N. Messick : and Frank J. The mother of these children, died June 10, 1896.
. Mr. Neu's love for his adopted land is unquestioned. His honorable methods of
business have commended him to all, and it is with a great wealth of esteem that he is passing his declining years in his home city of Indianapolis.
HENRY HERBERT THOMAS, president of, the First National Bank of Frankfort, has for many years been a conspicuous factor in the business and public life of Clinton. and Tipton counties. He is a successful man who started life as a poor orphan boy with nothing but his two hands to help him in the struggle, and it is seldom given to man to make better and wiser use of his opportunities than Mr. Thomas has done.
He was born on a farm in Tipton County, Indiana, August 18, 1848, son of Minar L. and Cynthia (Jeffrey) Thomas. His grandparents, David L. and Phoebe Thomas, came from New York State, where their son Minar L. was born in 1816, and were among the earliest settlers of Fayette County, Indiana, where for a number of years they put up with and endured the hardships and difficult circumstances of pioneering. David L. Thomas died in 1862 and his wife in 1858. Minar L. Thomas at the beginning of the Civil war was run- ning a saw and grist mill at Windfall, In- diana. In the spring of 1862 he left this business to volunteer as orderly sergeant, afterward being made first lieutenant in Company F of the Fifty-Fourth Indiana Infantry. He was almost immediately in- ducted into the great campaigns of the Mis- sissippi Valley, was at the siege of Vicks- burg, and after the fall of that city he was stricken with the dreaded scourge of diarrhea, which carried away so many brave. boys of the Union. He was finally sent home, having barely sufficient strength to reach Tipton County. and he died three days after his arrival. His wife had passed away in 1859.
Henry Herbert Thomas was eleven years old when his mother died and was still a boy when his soldier father passed away. Such early educational opportunities as he had were confined to the district schools. At the age of seventeen he took up the serious problem of earning his own living. He did farm work, also was employed as a teamster, and really introduced himself to a business career as a dealer in livestock. He was remarkably successful in this field and continued it for about fifteen years.
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From 1876 until 1887 he was associated with' J. H. Fear. Later for many years he was engaged in the wholesale produce busi- ness.
His fellow citizens in Tipton County early recognized his qualifications as a pub- lie man as well as a good business man and in 1886 elected him county clerk. He was elected on the republican ticket over a strong democratic majority, being one of the few members of his party chosen for office that year. During the next two years he gave all his time to his office, but in 1888 resumed his place in the produce busi- ness with J. H. Fear. In 1907 Mr. Thomas sold his interests in the produce business and soon afterwards removed to Frank- fort.
In 1901 another political honor came to him when he was elected joint representa- tive of Tipton and Clinton counties. This time also he ran far ahead of his ticket. In 1910 he was chosen councilman at large in Frankfort, but resigned after two years. Mr. Thomas has long been identified with the First National Bank of Frankfort as a stockholder and director, and in 1914 his fellow directors elected him president of the bank. This is one of the largest and strongest banks in Clinton County. Mr. - Thomas is a stockholder in the Franklin Loan and Trust Company and the Frank- fort Heating Company, and is the owner of extensive farms in Montgomery and Howard counties.
Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is still active in the republican ranks, and attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1878 he married Miss Hen- rietta Free, daughter of Randolph Free of Alexandria, Indiana.
OSCAR C. BRADFORD is one of the business men and merchants of Marion, and in the past fourteen years has developed a hard- ware and implement enterprise which fur- nishes supplies all over Grant County.
He represents the largest family in Grant County, and they have record of more than seventy years residence. He is a great-grandson of John Bradford, a na- tive of England, who on coming to this country located in Western Virginia, in Hardy County, in what is now Grant County, West Virginia. It was in the pres- ent State of West Virginia that George
Bradford, a son of John, was born in 1783. George Bradford lived in the hills of Vir- ginia until past middle age. In the early '40s he bought some land in Grant County, and in 1843 established his family there. He died twelve years later, in 1855. His first wife was Mary Stingley, and they had four sons, Leonard, John, George and Dan- iel. For his second wife he married Eliza- beth Schell, also a native of Virginia and of German ancestry. She became the mother of sixteen children, named Rachel, Isaac, Henry, Moses, Casper, Joseph, Wil- liam R., Catherine, Rebecca, Mary J., Eliza- beth Ann, Jesse T., and Noah and three others who died in infancy.
Jesse T. Bradford, father of the Marion merchant, was born in West Virginia Jan- uary 20, 1836, and was seven years old when the family came to Grant County. Living at a time when he did his educa- tional advantages were meager. He at- tended only sixty-five days in the common schools each year. He also attended the Indiana Normal School at Marion, Indiana, for eight weeks. At the age of twenty-five he moved from the home place to a farm in section 15 of Washington Township, and occupied that place and was busy with its cultivation and management for forty- seven years. In 1906 he retired to Marion and became actively identified with the hardware business with his sons. During his early adult life he was a stanch repub- lican, but later gave his principal support to the prohibition party. November 4. 1860, he married Lucy J. Gaines, who died March 5. 1874, the mother of four sons. On April 11. 1876, he married Angeline Silvers, and they became the parents of five children. Jesse Bradford died January 29, 1919.
Oscar C. Bradford, son of Jesse T. and Lucy J. (Gaines) Bradford, was born in Washington Township of Grant County, December 18, 1869. Reared in a rural en- vironment, he attended the common schools, spent one year in DePauw University at Greencastle, and finished a commercial course in the Indianapolis Business Col- lege in 1896. He also attended the Marion Normal College during the summer terms, and was a successful teacher from 1890 to 1900.
He entered business in 1900 as book- keener with a hardware firm at Warren, Indiana, and subsequently was secretary-
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treasurer of the Warren Machine Company and one of its directors. This company manufactured oil well machinery and did a large general shop and repair business. In 1904 Mr. Bradford withdrew to give all his time to the hardware and implement business in which he became associated with his father and brother. Their store has grown and prospered and is the medium through which a large share of the tools and other supplies are distributed through the City of Marion and the adjoining agri- cultural districts.
For a number of years Mr. Bradford has been regarded as one of the most in- finential democrats of Grant County. He was chairman of the Democratic Central Committee of the county in the campaign of 1912, and as a result of that campaign the county returned a large vote to Presi- dent Wilson and effected a complete change in the personnel of the county offices. In 1908 he was elected a trustee of Washing- ton Township. He resigned the office of trustee in June, 1914, to accept the post- mastership of Marion, Indiana.
June 17, 1899, Mr. Bradford married Ethel O. Stevens, who was born in Pleas- ant Township of Grant County, daughter of Harrison and Sarah (Beach) Stevens. Four children have been born to their union : Ruth M., Doris A., George R. and Sarah Elizabeth. Doris died in 1906, at the age of five years. Sarah Elizabeth was born June 2, 1918.
ORVILLE O. CARPENTER. In that group of men which has succeeded in bringing Newcastle to a front rank among Indiana cities there has been no more loyal and diligent factor in promoting every line of enterprise than Orville O. Carpenter, as- sistant cashier of the Farmers National Bank.
Mr. Carpenter has been identified with Henry County's life and affairs for about twenty years. He was born on a farm four miles west of Fairmont, Grant County, Indiana, in 1875, son of Lewis H. and Margaret L. (Black) Carpenter. Several generations ago three English brothers came to this country and established the Carpenter family. The grandfather, Wal- ker Carpenter, came West from New Jer- sey. Lewis H. Carpenter moved from Bel- mont County. Ohio, to Grant County, In- diana, in 1868, and developed a good farm
not far from Fairmont. Selling out there in 1878, he moved to Henry County, near Newcastle, where he now lives.
Orville O. Carpenter attended public schools in Henry County, is a graduate of the Newcastle High School, and subse- quently spent one year in the State Normal at Terre Haute and one year in an In- dianapolis business college. In July, 1899, returning to Newcastle, he and Howard S. Henley established a hardware business on East Broad Street. The firm of Carpenter & Henley continued 51/2 years, at the end of which time Mr. Carpenter bought out his partner and conducted it as the Car- penter Hardware Company for 31% years longer. He sold his business largely for the purpose of spending two winters in Florida to benefit his daughter's health. In the meantime he engaged in the real estate business, and has been extensively handling farms and farm loans as a broker and on his own account. In 1915 he bought a block of stock in and accepted the addi- tional responsibilities of his present post as assistant cashier of the Farmers Na- tional Bank.
Mr. Carpenter owns a half interest in 500 acres of Indiana farm land, and through his land holdings has done much to stimulate the production of Chester White hogs and Polled Angus cattle. His name is associated with many other of the live interests of the city.
He is a member of the Country Club, is a republican, is a Mason. a member of Murat Temple of the Mystic Shrine at In- dianapolis. the Knights of Pythias. the Red Men and the Methodist Church. In 1899 he married Miss Myrtle Hewitt, daughter of George and Martha (Koons) Hewitt of Newcastle. Four children were born to their marriage: Margaret : Mary, who was horn in 1903 and died in 1912; Hewitt L., horn in 1908; and Orville O., Jr., born in 1910.
STUART BROWN is one of that growing fraternity of automobile salesmen in In- diana, and is a member of the firm Gault & Brown. who represent "Dodge Cars and Dodge Service" over Madison County. They have the county agency for the Dodge Brothers cars, and have done much to in- sure the proper prestige for this type of automobile in that part of the state.
Mr. Brown was born at Indianapolis
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September 16, 1888, son of Henry and Pearl (Brumley) Brown. He is of Scotch ancestry. The Brown family were pio- neers at Indianapolis, locating there even before the state capital was moved to that locality. His great-grandfather, Oliver P. Brown, was a pioneer, coming from Xenia, Ohio, to Indianapolis in 1818. He was one of the pioneer merchants of Indianapolis, with a store on East Washington Street, and lived there the rest of his life. Henry Brown, father of Stuart Brown, is now a farmer and fruit grower at Walla Walla, Washington. The mother died in 1912. Of the two sons the other one, Ira, lives with his father.
Stuart Brown was reared and educated in Indianapolis and for 31/2 years attended the Manual Training School of that city, getting a thorough practice in shop and mechanical work. At the age of sixteen he entered Vorhees Business College and spent one year in that institution. After this commercial training Mr. Brown went to work in the offices of the Cincinnati, Ham- ilton & Dayton Railway as stenographer and bookkeeper. A year later he went to St. Louis and was stenographer in the offices of the Burlington Railroad for two years. In 1907, when he located at Ander- son, he became bookkeeper and stenog- rapher for the Union Grain & Feed Com- pany. He was with that organization for nine years, and much of the time was its traveling representative.
Attracted into automobile work, Mr. Brown showed his quality as a salesman with the Waddell Buick Company, and for eight months made an energetic campaign all over Madison County selling the Buick cars. He then formed a partnership with Mr. Zuriel Gault, under the name Gault & Brown, and established the Madison County agency for the Dodge cars. Their location is 921-931 Central Avenue, where they have a splendid salesroom, and also shop and other facilities with a perfect service for the Dodge cars. They also con- duct three branches in Madison County, one at Elwood, one at Alexandria and one at Summitville.
Mr. Brown has acquired various inter- ests at Anderson, and is a man of affairs in the county. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, having been through all the chairs, and is a member of the United Commercial Travelers. He is a
Presbyterian and a democratic voter. At St. Louis, Missouri, in 1908, he married Florence May Bell, daughter of Francis M. and Sarah (Hann) Bell. They have one daughter, Donna, born in 1910.
JOHN HENRY VAJEN. It was a remark- able life that came to a close with the death of John Henry Vajen at Indian- apolis on May 28, 1917. It was remarkable not only for its length and its association with so many changing eras of national progress, but also for its individual achievements and influences that are woven into the business and civic structure of In- dianapolis. He was a young and prosper- ing business man during those momentous days when America was girding itself for the struggle over the Union and slavery. He lived through the prosperous half cen- tury that followed, marking an era of ma- terial development such as the world has never seen, and his life came to an end after war's fury had again loosed itself upon the world and had even drawn the land of his adoption into an ever widening conflict.
The life that came to a close at the age of eighty-nine had its beginning at Bre- men, Hanover, Germany, March 19, 1828, under the English Flag. He was a son of John Henry and Anna Margaretha (Woernke) Vajen. He came of a long line of Lutheran clergymen and educators. His father was a professor in the Univer- sity of Stade in Hanover. In 1836, when John H., Jr., was eight years old, the fam- ily sought a home in America, locating in Baltimore, where the father spent a year as a teacher. He was a man of unusual talents and was a musician as well as a teacher and preacher. From Baltimore the family moved to Cincinnati, and then in 1839 John H. Vajen, Sr., with several other families bought land in Jackson County, Indiana, near Seymour, and organized a colony of German Lutherans.
The late John Henry Vajen was eleven years of age when brought to Indiana. He spent most of his youth on a farm, and his studies were largely directed with a view to his entering the ministry. In 1845 his father died, and that turned his activities into an entirely new channel. He was then seventeen years of age, and he soon left home to seek employment in Cincinnati. As clerk in a large wholesale and retail
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hardware store he made such good use of his opportunities and became so indispens- able to the firm that in 1848 he was given an interest therein.
In 1850 Mr. Vajen married and the fol- lowing year severed his interest with the Cincinnati firm and came to Indianapolis. In this city he opened a wholesale and retail hardware store on East Washington Street, and in 1856, to better accommo- date his growing trade, he erected what was then one of the modern buildings of the downtown district, a four-story struct- ure at 21 West Washington Street. J. S. Hildebrand and J. L. Fugate became asso- ciated with him. In 1871 Mr. Vajen re- tired from the hardware business, selling his interest to his partners, and for more than forty years he was busied only with his private affairs. He had a summer home at Lake Maxincuckee, Indiana, and spent many weeks each year there, enjoying his favorite sport of fishing. He also invested heavily in local real estate, and at the time of his death was a wealthy man.
In 1861, when the Civil war broke out, Governor Morton appointed Mr. Vajen quartermaster general of the state. It be- came his duty in this capacity to form all the plans with regard to the equipment of the first contingent of Indiana troops. He carried out this work with such energy and vigor that the Indiana troops were the first well equipped forces in the field, and that fact has always redounded to Indiana's credit in the history of that great struggle. Much of the early equipment for these vol- unteers was obtained largely through Mr. Vajen's personal credit. He became known as the "right hand man" of Governor Mor- ton, and at the present time his efforts as an organizer can perhaps he better ap- preciated than at any previous date. .
Mr. Vajen's active life was contem- poraneous with the life of Indianapolis. He saw it grow from a struggling village of a thousand inhabitants to a large com- mercial city. He was prominently iden- tified with practically all the early charities and enterprises of the city. In 1864 he assisted in the organization of the bank- ing house of Fletcher, Vajen & Company, which was merged into the Fourth National Bank and afterward became the Citizens National Bank. Mr. Vajen was a director and stockholder in this institution until it surrendered its charter.
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