USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 34
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68
At the time of his death he was the only surviving one of the original incorporators of the Crown Hill Cemetery Association, and gave substantially to public and pri- vate charities of all kinds. He was a Mason and Odd Fellow, a member of the Presby- terian Church and a very ardent republi- can, though not in politics save as a voter. Throughout his long life he was a fine example of the man devoted to plain living and high thinking, and one whose chief delight was in the simple things of the world.
In 1850 Mr. Vajen married Miss Alice Fugate, daughter of Thomas F. and Eliza- beth (Eckert) Fugate. Mrs. Vajen died in 1901. Seven children were born to them: Willis, who died in 1899; Frank L .; John, who died in 1885; Fannie, wife of Charles S. Voorhees, a son of Senator Voorhees; Alice, wife of Henry Lane Wil- son : Charles T .; and Mrs. Caroline Vajen Collins. Mr. Vajen was also survived by seven grandchildren and three great-grand- children.
GEORGE G. DUNN, an Indiana congress- man of the early days, began the practice of law in Bedford, Indiana. He was elected as a whig to the Thirtieth Congress, and as a republican was a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress. Mr. Dunn died at Bedford, Indiana, in 1857.
WILLIAM LEVI ABBOTT. Success in busi- ness is largely a matter of connecting good work and service into a chain in which every successive link is a little larger and stronger than the one preceding, all of them constituting the substantial achieve- ments of a career. This has been the ex- perience of William Levi Abbott of Elwood, who has been steadily lengthening out his chain since he obtained his first opportun- ity to prove his ability in mechanical lines more than a quarter of a century ago.
Mr. Abbott is sole proprietor of the EI- wood house of W. L. Abbott, agency for Ford cars. garage accessories and fueling station. He was horn at Sulphur Springs in Henry County, Indiana. March 22, 1873, son of George W. and Rebecca Ann (Fes- ler) Abbott. The Abbotts were of English stock, and the first of the family was George W. Abbott, who came in colonial times from England and settled in Mary- land. The records of the family disclose
2096
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
that most of the male members have been cither merchants or farmers.
William L. Abbott attended his first school in the country of White County, Illinois. His parents had moved to that locality from Indiana. In order to get to school he had to walk four miles through the woods, and the school was held in a log building. When he was seven years old the family returned to Indiana and lo- cated south of Dundee in Madison County on the old Fesler farm. The Feslers are a family of German origin. Here George W. Abbott managed the farm, while his son William L. attended the Branick schoolhouse for two years. The family next moved to the vicinity of Alexandria, where the boy furthered his education by three years in the King schoolhouse. Then they went back to Dundee, and he was again a. pupil in the Branick schoolhouse until he was about the age of fifteen. For another year he lived with his grandfather, David Fesler, and attended King school. All this time his school work was done during the winter, while in the summer he worked on farms. In 1890 Mr. Abbott entered Pur- due University at Lafayette, Indiana, with the intention of pursuing a course and per- fecting himself in electrical and mechanical engineering. The first year he was able to attend six months and the second year only five months before his money run out. However, the schooling was valuable to him and on returning to Elwood he found employment in the machine shops of the Shively business which occupied the site now held by Crane's Grand Opera House. This work gave him much knowledge of electrical and mechanical engineering. Three years after that he was foreman in the machine shops of the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company at Elwood. His ambition was to get into business for himself, and taking the modest capital he had accumu- lated and in association with his father and brother he opened the feed mill known as the Abbott Mill. This institution did grinding and offered a valuable service to the public for many years and was both a flour and feed mill. In the fall of 1916 Mr. Abbott closed out the business. Since 1912 he has been one of the principal deal- ers in Ford automobiles in this section of Indiana. He has the agency for Pipe Creek and Duck Creek townships, half of Boone Township in Madison County, and
half of Madison Township in Tipton County. He has done a big business in these popular cars, and has built up two establishments at Elwood for service and garage purposes, one at 1514 North B Street, a building 130 by 90 feet, and an- other 34 by 84 feet at 234 North Sixteenth Street. Mr. Abbott also has various other interests in local companies and banks.
In 1893 he married Miss Ida F. Myerly, daughter of John Henry Myerly of Elwood. Mr. Abbott has also been active in local politics and is a republican. For six years he represented the Second Ward in the City Council. He has filled all the chairs except that of noble grand in the Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows at Elwood and is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Improved Order of Red Men and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His religious faith is that expressed by the Christian Church.
WILLIAM J. REAVIS, M. D., has been a member of the medical fraternity at Evans- ville for over thirty years. He has served the community in the capacity of an able and conscientious physician and surgeon, and so far as his duties have permitted has allied himself with every worthy movement in civic affairs.
Doctor Reavis was born on a farm in Center Township of Gibson County, In- diana, September 7, 1853, a son of James Reavis, who was born in the same township in 1829, and a grandson of William and Catherine (Hensley) Reavis. Gile R. Stor- ment's history of Gibson County gives the following account of the grandfather : "In 1817 William Reavis married Catherine Hensley, and soon after that event they made a long and tedious trip to this county on pack horses and settled near the present site of Francisco, about a mile southwest and in the timber, where he erected a log cabin and cleared a tract of land and by industry made them a fine farm." William Reavis was, it is thought, a native of one of the Carolinas. He died in 1855 and his widow two years later. His brothers Isom and Daniel followed him to Gibson County in 1818. His two sons served in the Union army as members of the Forty-Second Regi- ment of Indiana Volunteers.
James Reavis was reared on a farm, and at the time of his marriage began house- keeping in a log cabin. There was no stove,
2097
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
and his wife did the cooking by the open fire. She was also an adept in those house- wifely arts of carding, spinning and weav- ing, and dressed all her family in home- spun. In 1861 James Reavis and his only brother, Alexander, enlisted in Company F of the Forty-second Indiana Infantry and went south with the command. Alex- ander lost his life in Andersonville Prison. James was in all the campaigns and battles of his regiment until failing health brought him an honorable discharge in 1864. He then resumed farming in Southern Indi- ana, and having inherited a part of the old homestead he bought other lands and lived there a prosperous and highly thought of resident until his death in 1882. He mar- ried Margaret Chambers, who was born near Kings Station in Gibson County, daughter of Norman and Elizabeth (Wallace) Cham- bers. Her grandfather Chambers was a pioneer of Gibson County and lived to a good old age. Norman Chambers was a railroad man and lost his life in a railroad accident when a young man. Mrs. James Reavis died at the age of sixty-six. Her six children were: William J .; Mary, who died at the age of ten years; Alexander, who was killed in a railroad wreck; Re- becca A .; Ella J .; and Julia A.
Doctor Reavis attended "Old Hickory," a rural school in his native community taught by Farmer MeConnel. The furni- ture of that old building he well recalls. The seats were made of logs split in halves, with wooden pins to keep them above the floor, and he wrote many times with a goose quill pen on a plain plank nailed around one side for a desk. Later he attended Fort Branch High School and also Oakland City College. Doctor Reavis was a successful teacher before he became a physician. Altogether he taught for seven years in Gibson and Warrick conn- ties. In the meantime he was studying medicine with Doctors Scales and Tyner and in 1877 attended a course of lectures in the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati. Before graduating he began practice in Richland Citv, Spencer County. but in 1885 returned to the Ohio Medical College and received his diploma in 1886. With these qualifications and experiences he be- gan his work at Evansville and continned uninterruptedly to the present time.
'In 1878 Doctor Reavis married Florence G. Allen, a native of Warrick County,
danghter of Manville Allen, a farmer of that county. She died in 1893. Doctor Reavis married for his present wife Elsie M. Hammerle. She was born and reared and educated in Bavaria, Germany. Doctor Reavis is a member of Park Chappel Pres- byterian Church, while Mrs. Reavis is a Catholic, a member of the Church of the Assumption. He is active in the Vander- burg County Medical Society, also the In- diana State Society and the Ohio Valley Medical Association, is affiliated with Evansville Lodge of Elks and is physician for the local branches of the Woodmen of the World and the Tribe of Ben Hur.
FRANK A. SCHOENBERGER is manager of the Morris Five and Ten Cent Store at. Elwood, is a stockholder in the Morris Company at Bluffton, and is a man of long and thorough business experience who has always given a good account of himself in relation to the opportunities presented him since boyhood.
Mr. Schoenberger was born at Upper Sandusky, Ohio, June 2, 1883, a son of Jacob and Tillie (Schwilk) Schoenberger. He is of Swiss and German stock. His grandfather and two brothers came to America and settled at Kirby in Wyandot County, Ohio, in pioneer times. Frank A. Schoenberger attended the public schools at Forest, Ohio, and was little more than a boy when he went to work in a grocery store at Forest. He remained there ten years and during that time was employed by five different firms. In the meantime, having an ambition to make the most of himself, he supplemented his earlier ad- vantages in school by two courses with the International Correspondence School of Scranton, taking both the business course and a civil service course. Leaving home surroundings. Mr. Schoenberger was for seven months with the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, was time- keeper in the cost department of the In- ternational Harvester Company at Spring- field three years, for nine months clerked in the Big Four Railroad offices at Mid- dletown, Ohio, and was then appointed sta- tion agent at Elwood, Ohio, for the Big Four. He remained there three years and then returned to Dayton and took the man- agement of one of the drug stores owned by his brother, H. E. Schoenberger. He managed this business two years, and from
2098
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
there came into his present relations with the Morris Company as assistant manager of its store at Newcastle, Indiana. From June 14, 1913, until December 1st of the same year he was manager of that business, and then removed to Elwood to take the active management of the Morris store in that city.
December 24, 1903, Mr. Schoenberger married Ruth D. Wells, daughter of Frank R. and Mollie (Neal) Wells. They have one child, Edwin Wells, born in 1907. Mrs. Schoenberger is prominent socially and a woman of many varied talents and capabilities. She is organist of the First Methodist Episcopal Church at Elwood, and is also an elocutionist who has given many readings before different organiza- tions. Mr. Schoenberger is affiliated with Carthage Lodge No. 573, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, in Ohio, and in politics votes as an independent.
ROBERT MAURICE ROOF, chief engineer and vice president of the Laurel Motor Corporation at Anderson, has achievement to his credit as an inventor that seems destined to give him a foremost place among Indiana's famous men in the in- dustrial field.
He represents an old and notable family of Henry County. He was born in New- castle September 13, 1882, son of James W. and Rosa B. (Lewis) Roof. His great- grandfather, Samuel Roof, was born in Shenandoah County, Virginia, March 3, 1797, his parents having come from Ger- many. He married in 1819 Dorothy Stef- fey, of Virginia, and they had four sons and five daughters. In 1835 they moved by wagons over the highways and trails to Wayne County, Indiana, and in 1837 Samuel Roof, who was a tanner by trade, took charge of a tannery at Newcastle, when that was a village of only a few houses surrounded by dense forests. Sam- uel Roof and his wife were among the charter members of the Disciples of Christ at Newcastle when that church was estab- lished, and were faithful in every relation- ship to their church and their community. Samuel Roof died at the age of eighty-one, on March 3, 1878, his wife having died in 1871. John W. Roof, son of Samuel, and grandfather of Robert M., was born in Vir- ginia June 6, 1821, and was fourteen years old when the family came to Indiana. In
1839 he carried mortar for the workmen erecting the county offices at Newcastle. He also drove teams in the pioneer trans- portation traffic between Newcastle and Cincinnati. Later he bought a tract of heavily timbered land near Newcastle, and on that he settled down after his marriage. Marietta Stout became his bride in 1848. John W. Roof was a prosperous and suc- cessful farmer in Henry County, and he and his wife became the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters, who reached mature years.
One of these was James W. Roof, father of Robert M., and who was born at New- castle and was also a construction engineer. He died at the age of fifty-four. His widow, Rosa B. (Lewis) Roof, living at Knightstown, Indiana, was a daughter of Edward Lewis, also a pioneer of Henry County. Robert M. Roof has a brother, Walter Raymond Roof, now a resident of Chicago and a man of prominence in en- gineering circles, being chief engineer of bridges for the Chicago, Great Western Railway Company.
The early boyhood of Robert M. Roof was spent in Henry County. He obtained his first schooling at Muncie, Indiana, and was only seventeen when he began a prac- tical apprenticeship at the machinist's trade, and contributed some of his early earnings to put his brother through college. Later he entered experimental work, and has given years of study and application to the problems of internal combustion en- gines. On coming to Anderson he was chief engineer for six years with the An- derson Foundry and Machine Works. While there he brought out a complete line of the Semi-Deisel engines, and these gave him an international reputation. They passed the inspection of the Italian Navy. In 1908 he brought out an aviation motor engine. His first motor had a successful test, and enabled one of the aeroplanes of that day to make a remarkable record. The motor was widely advertised in other coun- tries and was known as the "Gray Eagle." In 1916 he designed and brought out the Roof 16-Overhead Valve Cylinder Head for internal combustion engines.
In 1916 also Mr. Roof organized the Roof Auto Specialty Company, which later be- came merged with the Laurel Motors Cor- poration, of which he is vice president and chief engineer.
2099
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
In 1905 Mr. Roof married Miss Minnie E. Jones, daughter of Levi and Anna Jones. They have one son, Robert Maurice, Jr. Mr. Roof is a Knight Templar Mason.
-
HENRY ASHELY ROOT, founder and pro- prietor of the Root Manufacturing Com- pany at Michigan City, is a veteran in the lumber business, and in former years also operated extensively as a building con- tractor. He is one of the few men still active in affairs who saw service through practically all the war of the rebellion.
Mr. Root was born in Hebron, Connecti- cut, June 27, 1845. His family is of Eng- lish origin and was established in America in colonial times. His great-grandfather, Joshua Root, Sr., was born in Connecticut July 8, 1753. In September, 1775, he mar- ried Sarah Chapman. They spent all their lives in Connecticut. Joshua Root, Jr., who was born near Hartford, Connecticut, July 22, 1787, owned and occupied a farm in that part of the town af Hebron known as Gilead Society. He spent his last years there. He married Esther Ingraham, who was born June 8, 1792, of Scotch ancestry.
Austin Root, father of Henry A., was born in Glassbury, Connecticut, January 3, 1816, and spent his boyhood and early youth on a farm. In young manhood he removed to Colchester, and for a time was in the employ of the Hayward Rubber Company. He resigned this work on ac- count of ill health and resumed farming at Manchester, Connecticut, a short time later had a farm at Tolland, and finally engaged in the general merchandise busi- ness on Tolland Street and continued it the rest of his active life. He died June 11, 1884, at Rodville, Connecticut. The maiden name of his wife was Mariva Post. She was born in Connecticut and died February 15, 1880, at Tolland, Connecticut. There were four children. Esther Ann, Ellen Electa, Henry Ashely and Emma Mariva.
Henry Ashely Root acquired a good edu- cation while a boy. He attended the pub- lie schools of Hebron and also the Bacon Academy at Colchester. He was not yet sixteen years old when the Civil war broke out, and in April, 1861, at the first call for troops, he volunteered for the three months' service. During that three months he participated in the memorable first bat- tle of Bull Run. He received his honorable
discharge, returned home, and in 1862 again enlisted, this time joining Company K of the Twenty-second Regiment of Con- necticut Infantry and was commissioned as captain. After about eight months by special order from the War Department he went on detached duty, and remained with the Army of the Potomac and participated in some of the greatest campaigns of the war. He was in Washington at the Grand Review, and did not receive his honorable discharge from the service until 1865, more than four years after his first enlistment.
Mr. Root was not yet twenty-one years of age when he returned a veteran soldier. He learned the carpentry trade at Rock- ville, Connecticut, and soon set up in busi- ness for himself as a contractor and builder at Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1872 he came West to Chicago, the year following the great fire of that city, and was a resi- dent and engaged in business there until 1873. In the fall of that year he moved to White Cloud, Michigan, as vice president and manager of the Wilcox Lumber Com- pany. He sold his interests in that com- pany in 1881. He moved to Michigan City and was engaged in the lumber industry for several years, and in the meantime es- tablished the Root Manufacturing Com- pany, building planing mills and other factories for the manufacture of interior finish. The company still supplies a large volume of demand for interior finish, and many carloads leave the plant every year for distant points.
On April 3, 1864, while still in the army, Mr. Root married Miss Clara Eaton, a na- tive of Tolland, Connecticut. and a daugh- ter of Dr. J. C. Eaton. Mrs. Root died April 7, 1903. For his second wife Mr. Root married Jennie Blanche McKelvey. She was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Her father, James MeKelvey, was born on a farm in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and when a young man went to work in a rolling mill at Johnstown, and later quit that to buy a tract of mountain timber land. He converted the timber into lumber and also built up a large industry as a char- coal burner, a material which was in great demand at the rolling mills. The business since his death has been continued and is now carried on by his sons Eugene and Frank MeKelvey, the former a resident of Hollidaysburg and the latter of Coal Cove. Pennsylvania. Mrs. Root died January 28,
Vol. V-13
2100
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
1915, leaving five children, named James Henry, Henry Ashely, Jr., David Ray, Annie Jean and Joseph MeKelvey.
Mr. Root was one of the first members of the Grand Army of the Republic. He joined the Elias Howe Post at Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1866. He is now a member of Rawson Post, Grand Army of the Repub- lie, at Michigan City, and with the excep- tion of two years has been commander of the Post for twenty years. He was made a Master Mason in Corinthian Lodge at Bridgeport, Connectient, in 1865, and is now affiliated with Acme Lodge No. 83, An- cient Free and Accepted Masons, Michigan City Chapter No. 25, Royal Arch Masons, Michigan City Commandery No. 30, Knights Templar, and Indianapolis Con- sistory of the Scottish Rite.
THEODORE STEIN. A multitude of busi- ness activities have consumed the years of Theodore Stein since he arrived at matur- ity, and few of his contemporaries in In- dianapolis have shown greater ability at handling large and variegated business re- sponsibilities.
Mr. Stein was born in Indianapolis No- vember 7, 1858. He has an interesting an- cestry. On the one hand he is connected with a solid old German house, related to the nobility, and extending back in well authenticated records for more than a thou- sand years. On the other hand Mr. Stein is one of the charter members of the In- diana State Society Sons of the American Revolution, some of his ancestors having been in this country early enough to par- ticipate in the war for independence. Mr. Stein some years ago served as treasurer and also as president of the Indiana State Society. The possessions of the Stein fam- ily at one period constituted one of the petty principalities of the German Empire. These possessions in 1806 were mediatized along with those of other princely houses. The ruins of the Stein ancestral castle, called "Burg Stein," erected in 1050 A. D., may still be seen along with those of Nas- san, the ancestral home of the prosent queen of Holland, on a mountain near the river Lahn, not far from the City of Cob- lenz on the Rhine.
Theodore was the oldest of the five sons of Ernest Christian Frederick Stein and Catherine Elizabeth Stein. His father was a poor but worthy scion of the highest
German nobility, while the mother was the daughter of a well-to-do German "Gutsbe- sitzer." Frederick Stein, the father, after coming to Indianapolis, took an active in- terest in the organization of the republican party and became that party's first elected candidate for city clerk in 1856. It is said of him as a matter of distinction that when later he became a justice of the peace he invariably tried to arrange the dif- ferences of the people brought before his court on an amicable basis. While thereby he avoided imposing heavy money penal- ties, he incidentally curtailed his own in- come, and set a precedent which few of his contemporary squires dared to follow.
Theodore Stein received his education during a few limited years in the old Ger- man English Independent School of In- dianapolis. But during those years he ap- plied himself with such diligence that he acquired a knowledge such as many other students get only from college.
At the beginning of his business career he distinguished himself by his versatility. While following his daily vocation of book- keeper and manager of a large lumbering institution he was secretary of four savings and loan associations and treasurer of an- other. Mr. Stein is given credit for cre- ating an abstract of title business second to none anywhere, and which finally became the nuclens for the establishment of the Indiana Title Guarantee and Loan Com- pany, with which Mr. Stein's name is in- delibly connected. In 1896 he was a most influential factor in saving from destruc- tion the old German Mutual Insurance Company, which had been brought into being by that sturdy old stock of Germans which added so materially in the upbuild- ing of our beautiful capital city. Upon the reorganization in the same year into a stock company under the name of the Ger- man Fire Insurance Company of Indiaņa, Mr. Stein became its president. While these and other matters have occupied a generous share of his time and opportunity Mr. Stein has always given a helping hand in the advancement of his home city. He wrote not only a history of the German Fire Insurance Company of Indiana, but also a history of the German-English Inde- pendent School of Indianapolis, which lat- ter preserves to posterity not only views of Indianapolis of the past, but also a hun- dred or more portraits of earlier citizens
%
track Wampler
2101
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
of German descent, together with bio- graphical notes pertaining to same. He is one of the charter members of the Columbia Club, and as a republican was active in the early days of the Marion Club. He is a member of the National Civil Service Re- form League of New York City, and of the Navy League of the United States, Wash- ington, District of Columbia. He has al- ways aided church enterprises, is a lover of music and all that tends to better family social life, is a member of the Athenaum, and is a Scottish Rite Mason and a Mystic Shriner. Mr. Stein married an Indian- apolis girl, Miss Kuhn, on March 15, 1882. They have a daughter, Pauline Kathryn, and a son, Theodore Stein, Jr.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.