USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 4
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William J. Brown, who represented the fourth generation of the family in Indiana, was essentially a business man and his career as such brought him success and was characterized always by the strictest integrity. He possessed sound judgment, and while he enjoyed but ordinary educa- tional advantages he was considered above the ordinary in point of information. He
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became treasurer and general manager of the Indianapolis Stove Company, and held that position until the time of his death in 1914, at the age of fifty-eight. William J. Brown married Cordelia Garvin. Their three children were Garvin M., Austin H. and Cordelia S. William J. Brown is re- membered as a man of exceptionally kindly nature, had the faculty of making and re- taining friends, and was thoroughly worthy of the name which he bore. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, and was an independent democrat in politics. His widow is still living in Indianapolis.
Garvin M. Brown, of the fifth genera- tion of the Brown family in this state, succeeded his father as secretary and gen- eral manager of the Indianapolis Stove Company. He was born November 21, 1885, and has always made his home in Indianapolis. He graduated from the Shortridge High School in 1904 and from Princeton University in 1908. In 1914 he married Nina Gilbert, daughter of Harry C. Gilbert. They have one daugh- ter, Nina.
JOHN HENRY BUNING. On October 3, 1875, there was born to the union of George Henry and Charlotte Hektor Buning, of 14 Freeman Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, their third child, John Henry Buning, whose virile influence was destined to be felt soon throughout all the states of the Middle West. From the time he left home at the tender age of twelve years and four months to find the place of prominence which he felt the world owed .him, his life has been one of continuous activity and aggressive fighting to gain the ends he desired. His ceaseless energy and undaunted determi- nation to drive his way to success and make his life one of more than ordinary nseful- ness has placed him, at the age of forty- three, among the leaders of industry in the Middle West.
John H. Buning inherited from his father those sturdy qualities of persever- ance and faith in the events of the future which nerved him to fight on and never quit for one moment no matter what be the bitterness of a momentary defeat or the blackness of a temporary disappointment. After each blow the world dealt him he came back on the morrow with a punch more telling than that he delivered the day
before because he had profited by his mis- take of yesterday. Each mistake left it's imprint on the young man's mind and he never committed a blunder twice. When he was defeated at the age of twenty-one as the republican candidate for the Ohio State Legislature from the City of Cincin- nati he immediately decided that he was not moulded for a politician and turned his attention elsewhere.
The senior Buning was born August 23, 1840, in Achonsan, Germany, the son of John Herman Buning, who removed with his family to the United States in the early '40s and settled in the western section of Cincinnati. He became interested in busi- ness while quite young and had built a firm foundation for a business career when the Civil war broke ont. During the war he served with the Union Army, having enlisted in 1861 and been honorably dis- charged in 1865. He was proprietor of a retail grocery store in Cincinnati from 1865 until January 23, 1908, the date of his death. His wife, Charlotte Hektor, was born July 31, 1850, in Ramstein, Alsace; and came with her father and mother to live in the United States while she was quite young. She is now living in the old home place at Cincinnati and en- joys rugged health at the age of sixty-nine.
John H. Buning's parents were Catholics and he was educated in the parochial schools of Cincinnati. His father and mother intended to give him a college edu- cation, but the desire to win a place of distinction in the world was active within him from his early youth and he met his parents offers of a higher education with a declaration that he preferred to lose no time in beginning his campaign for suc- cess. Accordingly, the young John Henry set forth from the paternal hearth at the tender age of twelve years and four months and started out upon life's journey. He began armed with his father's sound ad- monition that industry, ambition, honesty, good health and dauntless courage were a combination the world could not beat, and fortified by his mother's impassioned en- treaties to always shun evil associations. Nature had endowed him with a keen men- tal perception and that brand of vigorous good health which enabled the hearty pio- neers of the Middle West to wrest their homes from the savage Indians who roamed the woods and streams and maintain them
John H! Pruning.
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against the rancorous attacks of both painted savage and unfavorable weather.
He gave a listening ear to his mother's tearful request that he not leave home and started out to seek employment in Cincin- nati. His first position was that of errand boy for the then most popular and reliable clothing store in the Queen City, Feck- heimer Brothers, at $4 a week. During the part of a year he worked on this job he thought seriously over the counsel his father had given him and the prayers his mother had offered for him and developed for himself the philosophy of life he has advocated religiously from that day to this. The theory he developed then was that if everything his parents had told him was true, and he possessed the child's blind faith in its parents' wisdom, if he gave his employer hard work and faithful service he would receive in return the maximum wages and the world would contribute the added recompense of steady advancement toward success. His one and only purpose was to make good and wrest success from the world, who decorates so few of her sons with the laurels of lasting success.
His early determination to always re- ceive the highest possible remuneration for his services caused him to leave the cloth- ing store after a period of employment considerably less than a year and seek a more lucrative occupation.
After passing through a period of four years spent in various occupations his par- ents finally prevailed upon him to learn the clothing cutting and drafting trade. The good offices of his mother induced Alexander Offner, of the clothing manu- facturing firm, Mayer, Scheurer and Offner, to take the sixteen year old John Henry Buning into his establishment as an apprentice clothing cutter. At that time Mayer, Scheurer and Offner was one of the leading clothing manufacturing houses in the Middle West, and it was by no means an easy task to gain entrance to its working organization.
Then followed a period of two years spent in absorbing toil, during which the young man labored seriously to become the best in his trade. His unceasing persever- ance was rewarded, and when he was eight- een years old he won the coveted ap- pointment as assistant foreman in the cut- ting room of the clothing factory, at a much larger salary than many of his seniors
were earning. His employers had perfect confidence in his ability as a producer when they made him assistant foreman of the cutting room, and soon found that their confidence was wisely placed. After at- taining this first victory he became pos- sessed of some leisure and interested him- self in politics and civic improvements.
He busied himself during his leisure hours from business in organizing the West End Improvement Association, whose ob- ject was to force the Cincinnati Street Car Company, owned and operated by John Kilgour under a fifty years franchise on all the streets of Cincinnati, to abandon some unfair schemes concerning the junk- ing of lines serving certain pioneer sec- tions of the Queen City. This association is still in existence and a powerful civic influence in the main section of Cincinnati. Had the Street Car Company succeeded in its designs the section of the city so dear to young Buning would have become iso- lated and business would have died a nat- ural death. The West End Improvement Association, thanks to Buning's tireless energy and courage to fight for what he thought was just, employed legal talent and fought the Street Car Company to a standstill, forcing them to continue service on the lines they intended to abandon.
Another abuse which aroused Buning's fighting spirit in the days of his minority was the practice resorted to by a few in- dustries operating plants along the Ohio river of filling in along the banks, thus acquiring free land. This practice of at- tempting to harness nature soon reacted in the river backing up into the sewer sys- tem of the city every time a little rain came, causing untold damage and misery in the lower sections of the city. He got into the fight late, but his efforts were largely re- sponsible for the discontinuance of the practice.
By this time he was known to many more than his intimate circle of friends as a young man of decided convictions, and to be possessed of the cool determination and courage to fight his battles through to a successful issue. His fight on the Street Car Company franchise brought him before the public eye and the republicans of Cin- cinnati decided that a young man endowed with Buning's energy, sagacity and pug- nacity would represent them to advantage in the State Legislature. Accordingly he
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became the republican candidate for the State House of Representatives in a strong democratic district and met defeat. This decided him that he was not created for a politician, and he turned his whole energy to business, giving politics only that amount of attention the subject de- mands from every patriotic citizen.
When he had reached the age of twenty- two he had decided definitely to leave Cin- cinnati to seek broader opportunities else- where. The Hoosier capital was his choice after careful consideration of sane advice from his many business associates and friends. Accordingly in 1897 the twenty- two years old Buning presented himself to Robert E. Springsteen, a leading tailor in Indianapolis at that time and now the post- master, asking for employment as a cutter and designer. He was employed for a trial period at a nominal wage. When the ex- pected raise in salary did not come, and in addition he found himself facing a reduc- tion of $5 a week, he decided to make another change in his occupation and get into one which promised higher remunera- tion.
He determined to learn the merchandise brokerage business and secured his oppor- tunity for doing this as an employee of C. L. Dietz and Company of Indianapolis. His energy and resourcefulness won rapid ad- vancement for him in this new business, and during his one year and eleven months with the Dietz Company he became familiar with every phase of the business. He was next employed by the J. M. Paver Com- pany, to whom he gave the best of his abili- ties until 1906.
From his errand boy days in the Cincin- nati clothing store to those in which he won distinction as a brokerage salesman for the Paver Company in 1906, John H. Bun- ing had steadily built his house upon the rock of regular habits and business-like precision. He had extended his business acquaintance to a host of business men in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. Each new business acquaintance developed into a business friend, and added one more brick to the structure he was building on the firm foundation of his early youth. He has heard that Thomas A. Edison answered a youth who asked him on one occasion what one quality a young man must pos- sess to be successful, "Young man are you able to save regularly a fixed part of your
wages, no matter how small they may be? If you are you will be successful. If not you will be a failure." These wise words of the great inventor were the germ which gave life to Buning's inherited thrift and spurred him on to save a part of his salary every time he was paid, no matter how small was the amount.
In 1906, therefore, he made up his mind that the time for him to strike out for himself in business had arrived. He had mastered the merchandise brokerage busi- ness thoroughly from every angle. His savings were sufficient to start the enter- prise and his tireless energy and iron de- termination were the qualities which kept it moving toward success during the dark hours of the beginning fight. He started out with supreme self-confidence to guide his frail bark through the angry waves of competition to the harbor of success.
Success rewarded his efforts and before John H. Buning and Company had been in business a year, with headquarters in Indianapolis, it was known to merchants throughout the Middle West as a leader among merchandise brokers. Today his company occupies offices on the fifth floor of the Majestic Building in Indianapolis, and does an enormous business in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and indeed touches all the states of the Middle West. The expansion of his project was rapid, and he soon took his two brothers into the business to act as salesmen. They are dealers in food products, specializing in canned goods, dried fruits, beans and pickles. Mr. Buning maintains a branch office in Dayton, Ohio, to care for the east- ern part of the business.
The following incident of his business life is told in the Indianapolis Star of January 28, 1915 :
"The second man to use the Trans-Con- tinental Telephone Line of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the first man to make use of the coast wire for commercial purposes is John Buning, of the John H. Buning & Company, Mer- cantile Brokers, with offices at 517-18 Ma- jestic Building. The first to use the wire was President Wilson, who spoke over it from his offices in Washington last Monday.
"Probably the sale of a large order of dried fruit was never accorded such an atmosphere of romance. Mr. Buning wished to give a large order to a firm in
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San Francisco, and the idea of using the Trans-Continental Wire for the purpose came to him suddenly at noon yesterday. He called Long Distance and asked to be put in connection with San Francisco, fifty two minutes later he was in conversation with Simon Lipman, sales manager of the concern. But when you are conversing at the rate of $7.00 per minute, you must get down to business quickly, and so-'This is John Buning-Indianapolis, get your pen- cil I've got some business for you,' said Mr. Buning to the astonished Californian sit- ting there in his office by the Golden Gate, more than 3,000 miles away. The conver- sation cost Mr. Buning $27.75.
" 'Right at first,' said Mr. Buning, 'Lipman's voice sounded as if it came out of a deep well, but in a few seconds every- thing was working fine, and both our voices was distinct, I only had to repeat one word-and I think that is a pretty good record for one man to talk to San Fran- cisco once and New York twice in the same day. It is certainly spanning the conti- nent.' "
During the thirteen years that have elapsed since John H. Buning began busi- ness for himself as a merchandise broker he has had the opportunity of giving at- tention to various interests other than busi- ness. He organized the first merchandise brokerage association in Indianapolis and served as its first president. He has long been recognized as a public spirited citizen and did duty as a deputy sheriff during the great flood of 1913. On several other occasions he has heen deputized for service helping to stamp out industrial strife.
Out of the proceeds of his energetic career Mr. Buning has become the owner of much valuable real estate in Indian- apolis, including several apartment houses and residence properties. He is a member of the Elks Club of Indianapolis, and has been a member of the United Commercial Travelers for twenty years. He is also a member of the Columbia Club of Indian- apolis.
JOSEPH R. BURTON, distinguished as a political leader and as a United States sen- ator, was born near Mitchell, Indiana, No- vember 16, 1851. His boyhood was spent on a farm, and after a thorough prepara- tion he was admitted to the bar in 1875. For three terms he was a member of the
Kansas Legislature, was a member of the World's Columbian Exposition from that state, and he has been prominent in polit- ical campaigns since 1876. During 1901-7 Mr. Burton was a United States senator from Kansas. He is a republican in politics.
The home of Senator Joseph R. Burton is at Abilene, Kansas.
FREDERICK M. BACHMAN. In the long run it seems that the good things of life come to the deserving. Those good things are not only money and substantial busi- ness station, but the honors and esteem that go with good citizenship and a name that accompanies honorable endeavor. An Indianapolis citizen who won a large share of this kind of prosperity was the late Frederick M. Bachman. Mr. Bachman came to this country when a boy, began life almost entirely on his own responsi- bilities, worked against obstacles and han- dicaps and made liberal use of his oppor- tunities. He was deeply sensible of the honor of being an American citizen and repaid to the land of his adoption a com- plete loyalty.
Mr. Bachman was born at Dirmstein in the Rhine Valley of Bavaria January 20, 1850. He was one of the eight children who grew to maturity, and was a small child when his mother died. He spent the first fifteen years of his life in the old country and an older sister acted as house- keeper for the family. At the age of thir- teen he finished his schooling, and after that worked on a farm and helped his brother who operated a bakery at the little village of Dirmstein. In the early '50s an older brother had come to the United States, and the glowing reports he sent back of the possibilities of the new world aroused the father, Michael Bachman, to follow the son.
Michael Bachman, accompanied by his daughter and his son Frederick, came to the United States in 1865. They traveled on a steamship, and their first location was at Louisville, Kentucky, where the father engaged in gardening and where he died. Frederick M. Bachman attended school a short time in Louisville, and made his own way by employment in a bakery at wages of $6 a month and board. That was his start in the American business world. His character was developed during those years
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of hard toil, necessary thrift and economy, and he learned how to deny himself and went without luxuries in order to solve the more serious problems of existence. Even as a young man he had an ardent ambition to get ahead in the world and establish a home for himself.
Coming to Indiana in 1867, he found employment at Noblesville in a restaurant. After ten months he took a place as clerk in a dry goods store, and was there a little more than two years. During all this time he was very saving of his earnings. Adjoining the store where he worked was a general supply store. It had gone into bankruptcy, and Mr. Bachman converted it into an opportunity to get into business for himself. The receiver of the store per- mitted him to buy it for $1,000 and to settle the obligation on time. He went into the new work with a will and applied the knowledge gained by his previous ex- perience and after a time was able to sell out at a profit. He then bought a stock of groceries and engaged in the re- tail grocery business, which he continued alone for about ten years. He then sold a half interest in the business, and re- moving to Indianapolis bought a grocery store at Ohio and Illinois streets known as the old Ripley Corner. This was about 1880. Two years later, through. unfor- tunate investments, Mr. Bachman lost his entire property. It was a heavy blow, since his property represented long years of painstaking effort and economy and self denial. However, his credit was good and borrowing money he bought a half interest in a saw mill and lumber yard at Lincoln and Madison Avenue. That was the scene of his business activities ever afterward, and for a number of years he was sole owner of a very prosperously managed lumber business and was one of the rec- ognized veterans of that industry in In- dianapolis. Of late years his son was as- sociated with him. Through this work he prospered and accumulated a fair amount of property, but better than all he sus- tained an honorable name as an example to his descendants.
Various other interests from time to time claimed his attention. He was probably given the first garbage contract ever let in the City of Indianapolis. Besides be- ing senior partner and founder of the F. M. Bachman Lumber Company he was a
director of the Fletcher-American National Bank, the Fletcher Savings & Trust Com- pany and the Citizens Gas Company. He was president of the Indianapolis Drop Forge Company and of the Booth Furni- ture Company of Peru, Indiana. For a number of years he was a member of the board of directors of the German House, and had much to do with the club's wel- fare. He was a Protestant in religion and was independent in politics, voting for men and measures rather than party.
It was a life of most solid and sub- stantial achievements that came to an end with the death of Mr. Bachman at his home in the Winter Apartments, 1310 North Meridian Street, on December 30, 1917. He was twice married. In 1879 he mar- ried Louisa Rentsch, who died in 1892. She was survived by two children, Fred- erick M., Jr., and Alma, the latter the wife of Herman P. Lieber. In 1897 Mr. Bach- man married Katherine Reger, of Indian- apolis, who survives him.
JOHN J. GARRETT is senior partner in the firm of Garrett & Williams, who operate the largest garage and general automobile salesrooms in the City of Anderson. Their handsome and well equipped establish- ment is located on Meridian and Four- teenth streets.
Mr. Garrett, who has lived at Anderson for the past five years and gained the full respect and esteem of his fellow citizens in business affairs, was born on a farm in Allen County, Indiana, a son of John and Marie (Disler) Garrett. His people were what is called Pennsylvania German stock, and were pioneers in Pennsylvania. The family came to Indiana in 1861, settling ' on a farm in Allen County. John J. Gar- rett's early experiences were those of a farmer boy who attended country schools about five months every winter and worked in the fields the rest of the season. After reaching young manhood he filled various other positions, but most of his time was spent on a farm of thirty acres in Allen County until November 1, 1913.
At that date he came to Anderson, and with his brother Henry bought the old Charles Garage at Fourteenth and Meri- dian streets. The name was changed to the Palace Garage Company. In Novem- ber, 1915, Mr. Garrett sold his interest in the business, but after a brief retirement
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formed a partnership with Earl Williams and established the City Garage at 1119 Main Street. They conducted this prop- erty for about a year, and on selling out repurchased the old Palace Garage, where they are still located. This garage had a capacity for seventy-five cars, and they maintain a complete repair shop and fnr- nish a service unexcelled anywhere in Madi- son County.
In 1898 Mr. Garrett married Miss Aldora Maxfield, daughter of Orange and Martha (Dever) Maxfield of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Three children have been born to their marriage, Dewey, born in 1899; Dallas, born in 1907; and John, Jr., born in 1917. Mr. Garrett is a republican, member of the Christian Church, and is active in Ma- sonry, having served as master of his lodge at Anderson during the years 1910- 11-12.
EDWARD A. DUCKWORTH has had a busy career for many years, and is well known in commercial circles at Indianapolis as well as in Anderson, where he is general manager of the Starr Piano Company, on Meridian Street between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets.
Mr. Duckworth was born at Indianap- olis October 16, 1877, a son of William and Emma Duckworth. His education was finished when he graduated from the In- dianapolis High School in 1896. His de- sire to become self supporting found an outlet in employment as a wrapper in the New York Dry Goods Store at Indianap- olis. He was in that store four years, but his ability had in the meantime brought him several promotions and he was finally foreman of the men's furnishings depart- ment. After that he went on the road as a traveling representative for a large Queensware wholesale honse at Indianap- olis, and for six years traveled and sold the goods of his company over an extensive territory embracing Indiana, Illinois and Western Ohio.
His first connection with the piano trade was as a traveling salesman for the King Piano Company of Chicago. After a time he was made manager of the King store in Indianapolis, where he remained four years. In 1909 he came to Anderson to take the local management of the Starr Piano Company, and has been here ever
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