USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 64
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JOHN HANSON BEADLE, journalist, au- thor, was born in Liberty Township, Parke County, Indiana, March 14, 1840. He was a precocious child, frail physically, but strong mentally. His parents removed to Rockville when he was eight years old, and he was then far ahead of schoolmates of his age. At that time the Sunday schools of Indiana were conducted on an educa- tional basis, with memorizing the Serip- tures as a prominent feature ; and when ten years old young Beadle' could recite the entire New Testament. There was excel- lent opportunity for instruction in the seminary at Rockville, which he attended until 1857, when he went with his older brother, William H. H. Beadle, to Michi- gan University, at Ann Arbor, where he continued his studies until 1861. In the summer of 1861 Company A of the Thirty- first Indiana Regiment was recruited at Rockville, and both of the boys joined it, William as first lieutenant and John as pri- vate. William became captain of the com- pany and later was commissioned colonel of the First Michigan Sharpshooters. re- turning from the war as brevet brigadier- general. John was discharged after the battle of Fort Donelson, in which he dis- played great courage, as an incurable con- sumptive. His health improved, and he again volunteered as a private in the One Hundred and Thirty-Third Regiment. This
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regiment was not organized until 1864, and was mustered out of service at the close of the war.
In 1868 he located at Evansville with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but began writing editorials for the Evansville Jour- nal; and as his health again failed, he ob- tained a position as correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, and started for California. He had found his calling. It was the day of the newspaper correspond- ent, and Beadle ranked among the best. Most of this stay in the West was passed in Utah, where he became the editor of the Salt Lake Reporter. It was a time when animosity between Mormons and Gentiles was at its height, and the evils of Mormon- ism struck Beadle with great force. He not only called a spade a spade, but if the emergency seemed to demand it, called it a spade and a rake. In consequence he was attacked by Mormons and severely wounded. The tactical mistake of his as- sailants was that they did not kill him, for he did more to form the popular American estimate of Mormonism than any other one man. He returned home late in 1869, and in 1870 his first book, "Life in Utah, or the Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism," was published in Philadelphia. It had a large circulation, and was followed in 1872 by "Brigham's Destroying Angel," which was the story of the life and confession of Bill Hickman. His reputation was now established as a valuable man for publishing syndicates, and three more books followed, 'The Undeveloped West," in 1873; "Women's War on Whisky," in 1874, and "Western Wilds," in 1879. In April, 1879. he became proprietor and editor of the Rockville Tribune, of which he did not make a financial success, as party politics was rampant, and Beadle had a habit of printing the truth as he saw it, without regard to party considerations. He was a reformer by nature, and although his out- spoken condemnation for wrong was not profitable in a business way, he sowed seeds that hore good fruit in dne season. Dur- ing this period he also did special work. In the winter of 1879-80 he traveled in the South, and wrote an elaborate description of the Eads jetties. In 1884 he was em- ployed to write part of a history of Texas. He also wrote part of a local history of Parke and Vigo connties. In 1884 he was sent on a tour through the "Black Belt,"
from Washington, District of Columbia, through the tidewater country to Southern Louisiana. In 1886 a syndicate sent him on one of the most notable of his trips, in which he went on a dog sledge, in the dead of winter, to Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The same syndicate later sent him to England and France with in- structions to write his letters "just as he would if he were doing it for the Rockville Tribune and the people of Parke County." His last work as a newspaper correspondent was done for the Cincinnati Gazette, over the name of Hanson. In 1882 Mr. Beadle sold an interest in the Rockville Tribune to Isaac R. Strouse, a practical printer who had been connected with the paper for sev- eral years, and the partnership so formed continued with mutual satisfaction nntil 1888, when Beadle went to New York to enter the employment of the American Press Association. Mr. Strouse then took over the entire plant, and is still operating it. Mr. Beadle took the position of his- torical and political editor for the Amer- ican Press Association, and for several years applied himself so assiduously to his duties that his health once more gave way. In 1893 he was sent to Chicago as the rep- resentative of the association at the World's Columbian Exposition, and after his return from there was sent to Washington as con- gressional correspondent, in which position he continued until 1896. After going to New York, Mr. Beadle used to spend his annnal vacations in Parke County, where he was always a welcome visitor, and dur- ing these visits he frequently delivered speeches and lectures on political and eco- nomic topics. His greatest pleasure, how- ever, when his health permitted, was tramp- ing through the woods and along the streams in the neighborhood of his birth- place in Liberty Township. He died at Rockville on January 15, 1897.
JOHN FINLEY, Doet, official, was born at Brownsburg, Rockridge Connty, Virginia, Tannarv 11. 1797. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. the American lines being descendants of seven brothers who emigrated from Ireland to America early in the eighteenth century. The best known of the brothers was Samnel, an itinerant revival preacher, who was ex- pelled from New Haven as a vagrant for preaching within the jurisdiction of a "set-
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tled minister," and later conducted a fa- mous academy at Nottingham, Maryland, from which he was called to the presidency of The College of New Jersey, now Prince- ton University. Another brother, John, was an associate of Daniel Boone in the wilds of Kentucky. The youngest brother, William, settled on a farm in Western Pennsylvania. His son, Andrew, removed to Brownsburg, Virginia, where he engaged in merchandising, and also had a farm near the village. The family was in com- fortable circumstances, and the son John had the educational advantages of the vicinity until his father's business pros- perity was destroyed by the capture of a cargo of flour by the British, in the War of 1812. John then went to work for a rela- tive who was a tanner and currier in Green- brier. In 1816 he decided to move to the West, and joined an emigrant company, his visible wealth consisting of a horse, a rifle, a pair of saddle-bags and fifty dollars in money. He was better educated than the majority of those who sought the fron- tier, and was an eager reader. He had no difficulty in finding employment at Cin- cinnati, where he remained for four years. In 1820 he located at Richmond, Indiana, which was his permanent home. He was an active member of the Masonic frater- nity, and his engaging personality and in- telligence made him friends on all sides, so that he naturally turned to public life. His official career began as a justice of the peace, in 1822. In 1828-31 he represented Wayne County in the Legislature, and following this he was enrolling elerk of the Senate for three years. In these positions he met all the leading men of the state, and reached a political status that he al- wavs retained. In 1833 he secured a con- trolling interest in the Richmond Palla- dium, then the principal paper of Wayne County, which he edited until 1837. In that year he was elected county clerk, and this necessitated a removal to Centerville, which was then the county seat. In 1845, on the expiration of his term, he returned to Richmond, and in 1852 was elected mayor of the city, a position in which he was continued by re-election until his death. on December 23, 1866.
Mr. Finley was always fond of poetry, and especially of the poetry of Robert Burns, and he wrote a number of poems at various times. He had an ambition to pro-
duce something of high grade, especially a national hymn that would meet a popular demand, but, like many others, his best work was in comparatively unstudied lines, where he was entirely natural. His last- ing fame rests on a poem called "The Hoosier's Nest," which was written as a New Year's address for the Indianapolis Journal of January 1, 1833, and which made the word Hoosier the popular pseu- donym for a native or resident of Indiana. He did not originate the word. It was a slang term in use in the South to designate an uncouth rustie, similar to "jay" or "hayseed." About the year 1830 there was a fad for giving nicknames to the people of the several western states, "Buckeye" for Ohio; "Sucker" for Illi- nois; "Red Horse" for Kentucky, and "Hoosier" fell to the lot of Indiana. Little attention was paid to it until Finley's poem was printed, and then it was adopted by common consent. He did originate the word "Hoosieroon," which is used in the poem to signify a Hoosier child, and has led some philologists to suppose that the word was of Spanish origin. Finley knew no Spanish, but was familiar with the end- ing through such words as quadroon and octoroon. Like many other "American- isms" the word came from English dialect, and no doubt had its original form in "hooser," a Cumberland dialect word in- dicating anything big or overgrown. There was another expression in the original poem that was in use at the time, which is not included in the later reproductions. It ended with these lines:
One more subject I'll barely mention To which I ask your kind attention, My pockets are so shrunk of late I cannot nibble "Hoosher bait."
The word was most commonly so spelled at the time; and Hoosier bait was a name given to ginger-bread that was baked in hread pans and lined off in squares indi- cating the amount purchasable for a "fi'penny bit." Another poem of Finley's that attained wide circulation was in Irish dialect, entitled "Bachelor's Hall." This was reproduced in England and Ireland and attributed to Tom Moore. It was also set to music, and was used in some of the school reading books. For a number of vears Mr. Finley was known as "the Hoosier poet," but that title has now gone
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to James Whitcomb Riley. Riley, like all of the other Indiana writers, recognized Finley's merit, and wrote of him :
The voice that sang the Hoosier's Nest- Of Western singers first and best-
Strickland W. Gillilan adds the lines : He nursed the Infant Hoosier Muse When she could scarcely lisp her name; * *
Let not the stream forget the springs, -- Set Finley's name before them all.
RUFUS A. LOCKWOOD, lawyer, was born in 1811, at Stamford, Connecticut, but he was not so christened, although his name appears thus on the rolls of the Supreme Court of the United States. His real name was Jonathan Jessup, and the occasion for his dropping it was the beginning of a checkered career that is seldom equaled in fiction. At the age of eighteen while at- tending Yale, he left college without ex- planation or notice to anyone and enlisted on an United States man-of-war. On his first cruise he saw a shipmate punished, un- justly and cruelly as he thought, and on arriving at New York he deserted. He changed his name to hide his identity, adopting his mother's family name ; worked his way to Buffalo on an Erie canal boat ; and then skipped by schooner to the rising Village of Chicago. From here a farmer with whom he formed a chance acquaint- ance, took him by wagon to Romney, in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. A school teacher was needed at the neighboring vil- lage of Rob Roy, and Lockwood was em- ployed. Here he took up the study of law by himself, committing Blackstone's Com- mentaries to memory. The next year he removed to Crawfordsville, where he opened another school. He studied law at night, married without a dollar in the world, was admitted to practice in the Cir- cuit Court, and went to Thorntown to be- gin his professional career. His first client was himself, in an action for debt, in which judgment was taken against him for a board bill, and his scanty household goods were sold by the constable. He lost his second case, and appealed to the Supreme Court. It was a small matter, but he pre- pared himself as carefully as if it involved thousands. At the session of the Supreme Court his diffidence and his uncouth ap- pearance attracted notice, but his scholarly
argument attracted more. He won his case and also won an offer of partnership from Albert S. White, then a leading lawyer of Lafayette and later United States Senator and United States District Judge for In- diana. He accepted, and financial pres- sure was relieved.
The new relation also brought his oppor- tunity for public distinction. In a quarrel over a bet on the election of 1836, J. H. W. Frank, the popular young editor of the local Democratic paper, stabbed with a pocketknife and killed John Woods, an equally popular merchant. The case stirred the community to its foundation. In addi- tion to the political bias, Woods had many personal friends, who wanted Frank pun- ished. A fund for prosecution was made up, and Henry S. Lane, Isaac Naylor and William P. Bryant, all strong men, were employed to aid the prosecution. On the other side were White & Lockwood, and John Pettit, later a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court. The case looked bad for Frank, and White and Pettit advised get- ting a continuance and letting the defend- ant "jump his bail." Lockwood insisted that it was better to stand trial, and the case was practically left in his hands, though Edward A. Hannegan was em- ployed to assist him. Aside from one lucky chance the failure of a man who had heard Frank make threats against Woods to appear at the trial-it was conceded that the case was decided on Lockwood's argu- ment for the defense. He spoke for nine hours, devoting his efforts largely to de- nunciation of a state of society that per- mitted the employment of men who were believed to have personal influence with jurors to aid in a government prosecution and inveighing against "the clique that had contributed money to secure a conviction." The jury returned a verdict of acquittal, and Lockwood's fame was established. A history of the case was published in pamph- let form, with Lockwood's speech in full, and widely circulated. Business now he- came prosperous, but he was a natural gambler. He made one sane investment in the purchase of 320 acres of prairie land northwest of Lafayette, in White County ;. but other speculations were disastrous, and left him overwhelmed with debt. In 1842 he deposited what funds he could collect for the benefit of his creditors, and disap- peared. From time to time reports were heard from him, of his studying civil law
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in the City of Mexico, of reaching Vera Cruz with $2, which he staked at monte and won $50, with which he paid his pas- sage to New Orleans, of his being reduced to manual labor at that place, and his en- listing in the army to secure a bounty of $20 with which to redeem his trunk, that was held for a board bill. The enlistment at least was a fact, and he was ordered to join the troops in Arkansas. On learning of this, his old friend Hannegan, who was influential politically, posted off to Wash- ington, secured an order from President Tyler for his discharge, and forwarded it to Lockwood with $100 and an earnest en- treaty to come back to his friends. He returned to Lafayette to find that his White County land had increased largely in value. He sold it, paid his debts, and was getting along well until the California excitement struck the country. In 1849, with seven- teen others, he started to California by way of Cape Horn, and came near dying of scurvy on the passage. At San Francisco he found employment for a time as clerk in a law office, serving also as janitor, and losing most of his small wages in gambling. An old friend offered him a case, and he embarked in practice, and won. Acciden- tally he met the senior partner of the big firm of Palmer, Cook & Co., who employed him in an important case. He won it, and established his reputation on the Coast. He made money; and the more he made the more he gambled.
In 1853 he announced his intention to go to Australia. Friends tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Just before his ship sailed one of them asked him if he had any money, and he coolly tossed his last coin into the bay, with the remark that he would start free. Arrived at Sydney, he started on foot on the overland journey to Melbourne, some 700 miles away. On get- ting there he found that the laws of the Colony prevented anyone from practicing law until he had been a resident for seven years. He remained for more than a year, finding employment first as bookkeeper in a mercantile house, then as clerk in a law office, and finally as a sheep herder. In 1854 he made his way back to California, apparently a changed man. To a friend he said : "I know you thought I was crazy, but I was not. It was the sanest act of mv life, for I felt that I must do some great penance for my sins and my follies. I wanted to put a gulf between me and
the past." He at once resumed practice, and with great success. Among other em- ployments he was called into the celebrated Mariposa land case by John C. Fremont. This was based on a Spanish land grant of 'ten square leagues" in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which had been purchased by Fremont. The local courts had rejected the claim, but the Supreme Court of the United States had reversed the decision, and affirmed Fremont's title. The govern- ment's representatives were now taking an appeal from the further proceedings of the lower court, and Lockwood was sent to Washington to oppose it. Contrary to the usual method, the decision in this case (U. S. vs. Fremont, 18 Howard, p. 30) does not mention the names of the attorneys, but in the list of admissions to the bar, pre- fixed to the report is the name of Rufus A. Lockwood, of California. His opposition to the appeal was based on two grounds, a failure to comply with the court's rules of procedure, and the claim that as the pro- ceedings involved nothing new, it was in reality an appeal from the former decision of the Supreme Court. Tradition says that Lockwood spoke for two hours on the law involved, and nothing but the law, receiv- ing the close attention of the court, and that one of the justices said: "That man is the equal of the best lawyers in the United States." The court dismissed the appeal, and Fremont's title was established. It is said that Lockwood received a fee of $100,- 000 in this case. In 1857, before it was fully disposed of, he started East on busi- ness, accompanied by his wife and child. They went by the Isthmus, and left Aspin- wall on the ill-fated ship "Central Amer- ica." Off the Carolina coast they encoun- tered a terrific storm, and the vessel sprung a leak. Lockwood joined the crew, and worked at the pumps until satisfied that the case was hopeless. Then he helped get his wife and child into a boat, which was saved, refusing to join them for fear of overloading it. Then he went into his cabin, locked the door, and went down with the ship.
CORTLAND VAN CAMP. President of the Van Camp Hardware & Iron Company, also chairman of the board of directors of the Van Camp Packing Company and the Van Camp Products Company, Cortland Van Camp stands forth unmistakably as one of the representative business men and influ-
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ential citizens of Indianapolis, which has been his home from his boyhood days, and to whose commercial and civic advancement he has contributed in liberal measure through his well directed business enter- prises and his loyalty and liberality as a citizen.
He is a scion of one of the old and hon- cred families of America, and, as the name implies, he is a representative of that sturdy Holland Dutch stock so admirably described by Washington Irving in his "Knickerbocker's New York." The orig- inal orthography of the name was Van Capen, and the family was one of ancient lineage in the Netherlands, whence came the original progenitors in America, set- tling in New York and New Jersey in the seventeenth century. The prefix "Van" indicates the patrician status of the family in Holland. To those familiar with the history of New Amsterdam, the quaint Dutch village which was the nucleus of our national metropolis, there comes at the mention of these sterling old names a men- tal picture in which sturdy figures seem to leap forth from the midst of centuries, instinct with hearty, vigorous life, and rep- resentative of stalwart Christianity and sovereign integrity of character. The Van Camps were aggressive and liberty-loving, and their names are found enrolled as pa- triot soldiers in the Continental line during the War of the Revolution. The name has ever stood symbolical of courage, fortitude and indomitable energy, and these sterling attributes have been significantly mani- fested in the career of Cortland Van Camp, who has wronght well under conditions al- most incomparably different from those that compassed his early ancestors in America.
Records extant show that Charles Van Camp, whose father had been a captain of volunteers in the War of the Revolution, came from Trenton, New Jersey, to the Territory of Indiana as early as 1804. He was among the first permanent settlers of the present County of Dearborn, and there he married Mary Halstead, daughter of James Halstead, who had brought his fam- ilv overland from New York and settled at North Bend. Ohio. On Christmas day of the year 1817 there was born to Charles and Mary (Halstead) Van Camp a son, to whom was given the name of Gilbert C. Van Camp. He was reared under the con- ditions obtaining in the early pioneer epoch,
and concerning him the following pertinent statements have been written : "He pos- sessed the very best traits for meeting snc- cessfully the difficult conditions of a new and undeveloped country. Economical, in- dustrious and resourceful, he shaped to his own will the possibilities about him." He married Miss Hester Jane Raymond, whose birth occurred July 19, 1828, in the State of New York, Westchester County, and whose parents were early settlers of Frank- lin County, Indiana, which was her home at the time of her marriage. In that county Gilbert C. Van Camp continued to reside, devoting his attention principally to milling and merchandising, until 1853, when he removed with his family to Greensburg, In- diana, continuing there until 1860, when he moved to Indianapolis, with whose busi- ness and civic life he became prominently identified. His life was one of signal use- fulness and honor and he stood exponent of the highest type of loyal citizenship. He continued to reside in Indianapolis un- til his death, which occurred April 4, 1900. The mother died at Indianapolis in 1912, aged over eighty-four years. Of their chil- dren three sons and two daughters are now living.
Cortland Van Camp, the subject of this article, was born in Franklin County, In- diana, May 25, 1852, and was about eight years of age at the time of the family re- moval to Indianapolis, where he was reared to manhood and where he has continued to reside during the long intervening years, marked by worthy accomplishment and con- secutive progress as one of the world's ster- ling workers. In boyhood he attended the public and private schools of Indianapolis, and also pursued a course in a business col- lege and had private instructions. His first position was bookkeeper for a commis- sion merchant, but he soon relinquished his position to take un an independent business career that has been marked by hard work, discrimination and inflexible integrity of purpose. In 1869, when but seventeen years of age, Mr. Van Camp formed a part- nership with his father and engaged in the fruit and general commission business. Iņ 1876, after having been identified with this line of enterprise for a period of about seven vears, Cortland Van Camp retired from the same, having determined to seek a field of business operations offering wider opportunities and less hazard than the com- mission trade, which involves the handling
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of perishable products. Upon mature re- flection he decided upon the hardware busi- ness as opening encouraging avenues for the accomplishment of desired results, al- though he had no intimate knowledge of the details of the same as a branch of trade. In June, 1876, he purchased the business of a wholesale hardware house in Indian- apolis. Upon entering this new field of enterprise Mr. Van Camp found that new methods were demanded to insure the ef- fective and profitable operation of the busi- ness. His plans were quickly and wisely formulated, and within a comparatively short time he had placed the business upon a substantial basis. Satiety of accomplish- ment has never been in evidence at any point in his business career, and thus we find that he soon found means for expand- ing the scope of his enterprise. This was done by the consolidation of his business with another iron establishment. This con- solidation was accomplished in 1876 and in 1884 the business was incorporated under the title of the Hanson-Van Camp Com- pany. In 1886 Mr. Hanson withdrew and thereupon a new corporation was formed, under the present title of the Van Camp Hardware & Iron Company, of which cor- poration Mr. Van Camp has been president from the beginning. The volume of trade was doubled within the three following years and the business of the company has continued to show a steady and substantial increase, so that the concern now ranks as one of the first of the kind in the West. The house does a wholesale business and is one of the largest jobbing houses in the country. Since January, 1899, Mr. Van Camp has given the major portion of his attention to the supervision of this large and important business, of which he is the chief executive officer.
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