USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 54
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For twenty-seven years Doctor Switzer has been a member of the Battle Ground Camp Meeting Association, serving as its secretary fourteen years and for ten years as president. He has always kept in close touch with his alma mater, DePauw Uni- versity and for a number of years served as a member of the Joint Board of Trus- tees and Visitors and was a substantial helper in increasing the endowment of the university.
Doctor Switzer has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Home Hospi- tal at Lafayette, giving fine and faithful service in that capacity, and is a member of the Board of Organized Charities of Lafayette. He is a member of the Board of the Woman's Christian Home, a mem- ber of the Preachers Aid Society, and is the ministerial member of the Investing Committee of its large endowment. Doc- tor Switzer is interested in the welfare of the entire County of Tippecanoe, and often
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serves as supply for other churches than those of his own denomination.
His business responsibilities have for many years kept him in close touch with the financial community of Lafayette. For over twenty-five years he has been a direc- tor of the Baker-Vawter Company, the widely known firm of stationery manufac- turers, whose head offices are now at Ben- ton Harbor, Michigan. In 1917 he became chairman of the Board of Directors of this company.
Doctor Switzer is a member of the Beta Theta Pi college fraternity, is a Knights Templar Mason, and an independent re- publican in politics.
Two children have blessed his home. The daughter, a graduate of DePauw Univer- sity and with post-graduate work to her credit in Purdue University and Oberlin College, is the wife of Professor Glenn A. Shook, Ph. D., now a member of the fac- ulty of Wheaton College of Norton, Massa- chusetts. Doctor and Mrs. Shook have one daughter, Elizabeth Louise Shook, who is the special pride of her grandfather. The son, Vincent Westfall Switzer, a graduate of Illinois State University, is connected with the Baker-Vawter Company of Ben- ton Harbor, Michigan, and is also a mem- ber of its Board of Directors, and treasurer.
In October, 1918, Doctor Switzer and his wife moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, for temporary residence. Doctor Switzer is still a member of the Northwest Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and has a pastorate in South Bend, being the pastor of the Epworth Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church in South Bend, Indiana. He is a director in the First Merchants National Bank of Lafay- ette, Indiana, the largest bank of that city. He was a director of the American National Bank and its vice president. The Ameri- can National Bank with two others liqui- dated and the First Merchants National Bank was organized. He attends the meetings of the bank, looks after the inter- est of the farm in Tippecanoe County, and other business interests the first week of each month, and is thus still related to Indiana.
As this brief outline has shown, Doctor Switzer's life interests have been by no means narrow. He is a very human man, with sympathies for all, with an optimism generated from actual experience and close
touch with all classes of people. He is a friend to those needing friends, is a helper of the helpless, and uncomplainingly has made sacrifices for the sake of persons and interests especially dear to him.
ADA L. (STUBBS) BERNHARDT since Feb- ruary, 1903, has been librarian of the Mor- risson-Reeves Library, of Richmond, and during that time has made this institution of constantly broadening value and service to the entire community.
Mrs. Bernhardt was born in Richmond, a daughter of Lewis D. and Emily (Men- denhall) Stubbs. Her ancestors were Eng- lish people who came in colonial times to New England and Pennsylvania, and a later branch of the family were pioneers in Preble County, Ohio.
Mrs. Bernhardt graduated from the pub- lic schools of Richmond and took her A. B. degree from Earlham College in 1879. In 1884 she married William C. Bernhardt, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who died in 1889. Mr. Bernhardt was a lawyer. They had one son, Carl Bernhardt, who was a former editorial writer with the Richmond Pallad- inm and the Indianapolis Sun, and is now a resident of New York. He was educated in Earlham College and later at Johns Hopkins University.
After the death of her husband Mrs. Bernhardt in 1889 became private secre- tary to William Dudley Foulke, and con- tinned in that service until she turned to her present duties as librarian.
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JOHN W. MOORE has long been promi- nent as a railroad and latterly as a con- sulting and constructional engineer. His present headquarters are in Indianapolis. Mr. Moore is a native of Indiana, son of the late Dr. Henry Moore, one of the promi- nent physicians and business men of the state.
Dr. Henry Moore was born in Hamilton County, Indiana, son of John Moore, a na- tive of North Carolina. John Moore with his young wife crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains on horseback, and after a brief sojourn in Ohio moved to Hamilton County, Indiana, in pioneer times. He was a farmer there and became a man of influence in his community. He reared a large family. He was a strong republican, a supporter and admirer of Governor Mor- ton, Indiana's war governor, and he took
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an active part in bringing to justice the anti-war conspirators of that time.
Dr. Henry Moore lived at home to the age of seventeen and then enlisted in the Twenty-Fifth Illinois Infantry. Soon af- ter his enlistment he was transferred to the Medical Corps and during the last two years of his service had charge of the Gov- ernment Hospital at New Albany. He was in the service four years and was pro- moted to the rank of surgeon. He was in the heat of the battle of Missionary Ridge and other important engagements. His early education was acquired in the public schools and later he graduated from the Indianapolis Medical College. He began practice at Milwood in Hamilton County and had a busy career as a country physi- cian for twenty-five years. He built the first house at Milwood and later was instru- mental in having the name of the village changed to Sheridan in honor of the great Civil war general. He was a man of keen business vision and of great enterprise and worked for the welfare of the state. He was instrumental in securing the construc- tion of a railroad from Frankfort, Indiana, to Indianapolis, by securing the right of way for that line. He was active in build- ing the First Methodist Church at Sheri- dan, and was affiliated with the Masonic Lodge at Deming, Indiana. He was an ar- dent republican. Besides his medical prac- tice at Sheridan he conducted a fine farm two and a half miles east of the town, and became an extensive land owner. He was a father of a family of six children, John W. being the oldest.
John W. Moore was born in New Al- bany, Indiana, January 18, 1865. His mother's maiden name was Catherine R. Paget. In 1880 the family removed to In- dianapolis, locating at Irvington, where Dr. Henry Moore spent the rest of his life. At Indianapolis he became extensively identi- fied with railroad promotion and operation and was general manager of the Central Indiana Railroad. Governor Durbin ap- pointed him to investigate and recommend a location for the Deaf and Dumb Institute of Indiana, and it was upon his recom- mendation largely that the institution was established. Later he was similarly em- ployed to investigate and recommend the location for the present Tuberculosis Hos- pital near Rockville in Parke County and had charge of the construction of the hos-
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pital building. His death came suddenly. He dropped dead in the State House at In- dianapolis December 2, 1912. At that time he was chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Tuberculosis Hospital.
John W. Moore acquired his early edu- cation in the common schools of Sheridan and the Union High School at Westfield, Indiana. After the family moved to In- dianapolis he attended Butler College and took a special engineering course for four years. He was employed as the civil and locating engineer for several railroad com- panies and for ten years was chief engineer in charge of construction of the Central Indiana Railroad. In 1903 he resigned that position to become chief engineer of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati Traction Company, and held that post eight years. Since then he has been engaged in private practice as a consulting and construction engineer. He has made something of a specialty of furnishing plans and specifica- tions for increasing water supply for cities and large enterprises, planning sanitary systems and air lift pumping systems. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, of the Indiana Engineer- ing Society, and of the Indiana Sanitary and W. S. A. He is a Knight Templar Mason, a member of the Rotary Club and is a republican in politics.
MOSES ROSENTHAL was one of the re- markable characters of Central Indiana during his life time, and was one of the few men whose influence was wholly for good. The pages of this publication can hardly contain the record of any man whose life work was more completely an expression of unselfish devotion and labor in behalf of those he loved, whether family or intimate friends.
He was born February 2, 1844, at Nag- lesburg in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, Germany, of Hebrew parentage. He was the oldest of ten children, including three half brothers. As a boy he had good ad- vantages, but was left an orphan at thir- teen and from that time forward was com- pelled to do for himself. Realizing the limited opportunities in the old country, he determined to seek his home and for- tune in America. Soon after the death of his father and while still at an age when the average boy is within the sheltering protection of parents he crossed the At-
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lantic Ocean to America. His first employ- ment in this country was in an abbatoir at Buffalo. One of his chief characteristics was an intelligence and energy that enabled him to master any undertaking in an in- creditably short time. As a result of the exercise of this intelligence he came when a beardless boy to Indiana as a buyer of cattle. He was thrifty, and shortly before the beginning of the Civil war located at Indianapolis as a member of the wholesale and retail clothing establishment of Hays & Rosenthal.
By the time he was nineteen years of age Moses Rosenthal had brought his nine brothers and sisters to this country, and later most of them were married from his home. At the age of twenty-one he him- self married Frances Hays, daughter of his former partner. It will indicate the tre- mendous energy of his nature and his ex- ceptional business ability to state that at the time of his marriage, aside from his numerous family charities, he had accumu- lated $11,000 in cash, a store in Kokomo and had no debts.
His generosity and public spirit were signally manifested during the period of the Civil war. When Morgan threatened to devastate the central portion of the state he closed his store, volunteered his serv- ices to Governor Morton, and served ninety days as a member of the state troops. This was not his only sacrifice in behalf of the Union. He was' owner of a stave and heading factory at Kokomo. Thousands of dollars worth of valuable material in this plant were consumed by the Union troops for fuel, and he never received a cent of payment for this property. He also owned a flax mill at Logansport, but after the death of one of his employes and the injury of a number of others through a boiler explosion he could no longer live there and he accordingly razed the prop- erty and moved to Peru. From the latter place he again returned to Indianapolis, and for a time operated a shoe store in the Bates House and a furnishing store at 37 East Washington Street.
Unlike many of his race Mr. Rosenthal had no particular desire for riches beyond what would suffice for the comforts his ac- cumulations would procure to those near and dear to him. Undoubtedly had he ex- ercised his business talents to their full bent he might have become one of the
wealthiest men of Indiana. First and last, however, he was swayed by a broad sense of duty to humanity, and like the philoso- pher of old could exclaim that humanity's every interest was his own. Scores of needy individuals were made happier and better for his benefactions, and many of these still living recall his memory with loving words of praise.
His life was made the more notable for the strong friendships he formed and kept to the end of his days. The making of friends was not a studied effort with him, but was merely a natural consequence upon the attributes of his character already de- scribed. He was on terms of intimacy with most of the noted men of his day. There is no question that the death of his warm and personal friend Thomas A. Hendricks hastened his own end. Mr. Rosenthal was exceedingly democratic, ap- proachable, agreeable, charitable in his views and acts, and as nearly as is humanly possible his life was a complete expression of the best ideals of charity.
The names of his children were: Max M., of Davenport, Iowa; Delia R., Mrs. Norbert Gunzberger, of New York ; Walter M., of New York; Engene M., of Detroit; Albert M .; Edwin M., of Toledo, Ohio; and Irma H., Mrs. Emile Despres.
Albert M. Rosenthal, the only one of the children of the late Moses Rosenthal still living in Indiana, was born at Kokomo, Oc- tober 17, 1876. He acquired his education chiefly in what is now the Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. He was nine years of age when his father died, and he soon afterward began earning his own living. He early took up real estate and insurance and subsequently traveled as a salesman for a wholesale paper establishment. In- heriting much of the quick intelligence of his father, he rapidly mastered all the de- tails of the paper business and in 1903 founded the Standard Paper Company of Indianapolis, of which he has since been president. This is one of the larger com- mercial enterprises of the capital city. Mr. Rosenthal is an able business man and widely known over his native state.
He married Miss Gertrude Kirshbaum, daughter of Raphael Kirshbaum, who died in 1916. Their two daughters are named Flora Margaret and Janet Susanne.
PAUL OSCAR TAUER, one of the leading business men of Lebanon, has been identi-
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fied with that city since 1900, and is the present mayor of that hustling little city ....
Mr. Tauer, who has a military record as a soldier of the Spanish-American war, was born at Amsterdam, New York, Sep- tember 21, 1871. His parents, Oscar and Josephine (Nichols), Tauer, were both na- tives of Germany. His father was born October 17, 1836, and came to America af- ter his marriage, at the age of twenty-one. He was a college graduate and an expert piano maker by trade. He finally located at Richmond, Indiana, and began the man- ufacture of the Star pianos, and has built up one of the largest industries of its kind in Indiana, his products going all over the world. He was a member of the Lutheran Church, is a Knight of Pythias and Mason and one of the best known citizens of Leb- anon. His wife was born in Germany in. 1840 and died at Richmond in. 1889. She was very devout in her attendance and work in the German Lutheran Church. Of their six children five are still living : Ada- line, unmarried and. living at Detroit, Michigan; Oscar, with his father in busi- ness ; Paul O .; Emil, a florist at Richmond ; Anna, wife of. John Sickman, an overall manufacturer at Richmond; and Henrietta, deceased.
Mr. Paul O. Tauer was educated in the Richmond public schools. In 1898 he en- listed in Company F of the One Hundred Sixty-First Indiana Infantry. He went with his regiment to Cuba, served as a pri-, vate and later as a sergeant, and his regi- ment was commanded by Colonel Winfield T. Durbin, afterward governor of Indiana. Mr. Tauer is a member of the Spanish- American War Veterans Association, be- ing affiliated with Eli Clampitt Camp No. 49 at Lebanon, and is a past commander.
Mr. Tauer came to Lebanon in 1900 and engaged in the floral business, in which he had considerable previous training. He bought an old and run down plant, and has developed a large and prosperous en- terprise, the only business of its kind in Boone County. His plant is situated on the south side of the city, and he has three acres of ground at the disposal of his busi- ness. He also has one of the modern homes of Lebanon.
Mr. Taner was elected a member of the Lebanon City Council in 1910, serving a term of four years, and in 1918 was elected mayor for a term of four years. He is a progressive in everything that concerns the Vol. V-20
welfare of the community as well as in his own business. Mr. Tauer is a republican, is affiliated with the Masons, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Improved Order of Red Men. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. January 11, 1899, he married Miss Minnie Brooks, a native of Peru, Indiana. She died October 13, 1901, the mother of one child, Myron B., pow a student in the public schools. October 23, 1902, Mr. Tauer married Miss Ione McCas- lin, a native of Lebanon and a daughter of Andrew and Mary ( Campbell) McCaslin. Mr. and Mrs. Tauer have three children : Mary Ann, Lowell Robert, and Paul, Jr.
EARL A. THOMAS. While his early ex- periences, were with industrial and mann- facturing plants, Earl A. Thomas has shown signal ability in handling mercan- tile enterprises, and as manager and stock- holder in the Rapp Cut Price Company at Richmond he has made the record of prac- tically doubling the volume of business transacted by that store, every year since he took charge in 1915. The Rapp Cut. Price Company is incorporated for $160, -. 000, and is one of the largest mercantile corporations of Indiana, operating seven branches, handling men and women's ready to wear clothing, shoes and other goods. The , Richmond store commands a trade over a radius of twenty-five miles around the city.
Mr. Thomas was born on a farm near Jonesboro in Grant County, Indiana, in 1885, son of A. B. and Sarah A. (White) Thomas. He is of Welsh ancestry and his people have been in this country for many generations. His father was born in In- diana and his mother was sixteen years old when she came from Virginia with her parents.
Earl A. Thomas grew up on a farm, at- tended district schools and helped with the work of the farm until he was eighteen. At Kokomo he worked for a year and a half as a polisher in the Rockford Bit Works, then two years with the Haynes Automobile Works as helper in the case hardening department. An opportunity more in accord with his abilities and ambi- tions came as salesman in the general store of the C. M. Levitt Cut Price Company at Kokomo. He spent two years there and was then with the T. C. Rapp Company at Kokomo as clerk in the general store in
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1912. He was advanced rapidly, and in 1915 was made manager of the Richmond store and given an opportunity to acquire stock in the corporation.
Mr. Thomas married, May 1, 1912, Mar- tha Oram, a daughter of James P. and Nancy Oram of Kokomo. They have one son, Richard Oram Thomas, born in 1915. Mr. Thomas has interested himself in a public spirited manner with the affairs of Richmond, is independent in politics, and is a member of the Friends Church.
HUGH THOMAS MONTGOMERY, M. D. One of the best known names in scientific and medical circles in Northern Indiana is that of Dr. Hugh Thomas Montgomery, who began the practice of medicine over forty years ago and for more than thirty-five years has been a resident of South Bend.
Doctor Montgomery was born at Browns- ville in Southwestern Pennsylvania Decem- ber 10, 1849, but has lived since childhood in Indiana. The Montgomery family in England dates back by well authenticated records to the time of William the Con- queror. The British Encyclopedia states that Roger de Montgomery (1030-1094) was a counsellor of William, Duke of Nor- mandy, before the latter made his inva- sion of England. He was probably en- trusted by William with the government of Normandy during the expedition of 1066. Roger came to England the following year and received extensive grants of land in different parts of the Kingdom. He be- came the Earl of Arundel. In 1071 the greater part of the County of Shropshire was granted to him, carrying with it the Earl of Shropshire, though from his prin- cipal residence at the Castle of Shrewsbury he like his successors was generally styled Earl of Shrewsbury.
It is a well established fact that three brothers named William, Robert, and Hugh Montgomery came to America in early col- onial times and settled at Jamestown, Vir- ginia, in 1666. It is said that Hugh re- turned to England and died unmarried. However, the name Hugh has appeared in almost every generation, and many, of the Montgomery name and bearing the Chris- tian name Hugh, have lived in nearly every state of the Union.
Doctor Montgomery's grandfather was named Hugh. He was a boat builder with yards on the Monongehela River at
Brownsville, Pennsylvania. He built many boats for the river traffic before the era of railroads. He lived there until his death.
Riland Montgomery, father of Doctor Montgomery, was apprenticed to a tailor. Not liking his employer he ran away at the age of sixteen and went to Georgia, where he followed his trade a few years. He then returned to Brownsville, making it his home until 1850, when he removed to Mount Vernon, Indiana, and engaged in business as a merchant tailor for two years. He then turned his attention to the grain and produce business. In 1854 he and seven men started down the river with two boats loaded with grain and produce. None of the eight men were ever heard from and it is supposed they were victims of river pirates.
Riland Montgomery married Caroline Jane Poland. She was born in or near Hagerstown, Maryland, May 31, 1826, daughter of Thomas and Ellenora (Dun- can) Poland. When she was fourteen years old she lost her mother, and being the oldest child she cared for and tenderly reared and disciplined her younger broth- ers and sisters. She did not accompany her husband to Mount Vernon but joined him a few weeks later, making the journey by boat down the Monongehela and Ohio rivers. After she had become convinced of the death of her husband she went to Ohio and lived with some of her relatives near Columbus, but in the fall of 1855 came to South Ber:d. Soon afterwards she married Abner Tibbets, a farmer. They lived successively at Lakeville, then at Warsaw, afterward at Bourbon and finally at Plymouth, where Mr. Tibbets died. Doctor Montgomery's mother survived her second husband many years and for fif- teen years lived with her son Hugh. She died in her ninety-second year and was both physically and mentally strong to the last.
Dr. Hugh Thomas Montgomery was about six years old when his mother came to South Bend. He received most of his early education in the schools of Warsaw and began the study of medicine with Dr. A. C. Matchett at Bourbon. After eight- een months in the Chicago Medical Col- lege, now the Medical Department of Northwestern University, he was graduated March 16, 1875, and in June of the same
Chester P. montgomery
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year began practice at Wakarusa in Elk- hart County. From there in 1883 he re- moved to South Bend, and has been con- tinuously active in his profession as a phy- sician and surgeon ever since. He has kept himself abreast in the advance of medical science, and has also indulged his interest for a deep study and research of other lines of science and also in ancient history. Doctor Montgomery has been re- garded for many years as probably the best authority on the geology of Northern Indiana, particularly the region around South Bend, and has written a number of articles on the glacial period. Doctor Montgomery had his home on West Wash- ington Street in South Bend until 1913, when he bought a two-acre tract three miles east of the Court House, and there built a home with grounds ample to furnish him occupation for all his leisure hours. He has improved these grounds with shade and ornamental trees and fruits, and is an en- thusiastie gardener and amateur horticul- turist. Doctor Montgomery is now presi- dent of the Northern Indiana Historical Society.
He married Miss Hattie Linwood Cook. Mrs. Montgomery was born at Sparta, Wis- consin, a daughter of Elisha B. and Mary Ann (Marchant) Cook. Her mother was born in the Thomas Mayhew house at Ed- gerton in Martha's Vineyard, Massachu- setts, July 8, 1833. Doctor and Mrs. Mont- gomery have four children: Ethel Lin- wood; Chester Riland, now judge of the Superior Court ; Grace ; and Zolah. Grace is the wife of Harvey (Gintz) and has two children, John and Elizabeth.
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