USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 65
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Meanwhile he achieved an equally notable business success. In 1882 Mr. Van Camp, with his father, organized the Van Camp Packing Company, which by good management has developed into one of the leading packing companies of the country. He remained with this enterprise until 1900. Twelve years later he again became interested in this business, reorganized it, holding the office of president, and is now chairman of the board of directors.
Mr. Van Camp is not the type of man to vaunt his own success or accomplish- ment, and in view of this fact it is the more gratifying to offer the following esti-
mate paid him by a prominent banker and influential citizen of Indianapolis, who said : "I have known Mr. Van Camp inti- mately throughout his business career and consider him a born merchant and finan- cier. His is the leading hardware and iron house in the state, and there are but few larger in the West. The concern is very aggressive and is constantly extending its trade into new territory. Mr. Van Camp is the man who deserves the credit for building up the business and putting it on its present sound financial footing. In my opinion this has required greater ability and more energy and persistence, in an in- land city like Indianapolis, than would be needed in a city such as St. Louis or Chi- cago. Though of a very retiring disposi- tion, Mr. Van Camp is strong and self- reliant in meeting the manifold problems of business life."
A man of broad mental horizon and of most practical ideas, Mr. Van Camp has been significantly liberal and public- spirited as a citizen, and his influence and capitalistic support have been given to nu- merous enterprises and measures aside from the splendid institution which he has built up in his chosen field. Perhaps one of the most important and far-reaching of his ventures was when he became one of the organizers of the Indianapolis Southern Railroad Company, a road giving Indian- apolis a through-route to the South. In- dianapolis had long been waiting a direct road to the coal fields of the state. Sev- eral efforts had been made to enlist the aid of the city in the project but without success. It thus became necessary for pri- vate individuals to risk capital and devote time for the success of such an enterprise. Mr. Van Camp with three others undertook the building of the road, shouldering the entire responsibility and without soliciting the sale of stock to their friends or to indi- viduals living along the right of way. Prior to its completion the road was purchased by the Illinois Central Railroad Company and was then completed to Effingham, Illi- nois, there connecting with the main line. Thus through the efforts of Mr. Van Camp 'and his associates Indianapolis secured a railroad connecting the city direct with the coal fields and with the Illinois Central the City of New Orleans, the South and the gulf ports. The road was opened for pas- senger traffic December 17, 1906, and is practically the only steam railroad com-
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pleted running into or from Indianapolis since 1886. 'This has added materially to the precedence of the city as a railroad and distributing center whose commercial facilities are of the highest grade. Mr. Van Camp was not merely a figurehead, as is often the case in such enterprise, but was an important factor in financing and making the enterprise successful. History records final success, and much good there- by has come to Indianapolis and contiguous territory. He has contributed in many ways to the industrial, commercial and civic progress of the capital city, and no citizen is more loyal to its interest.
One who has had the power to achieve so noteworthy success cannot fail to have defi- nite conviction in regard to matters of public polity, and thus Mr. Van Camp is found arrayed as a stanch advocate of the principles and stands sponsor for the best in civic development. His reverence for the spiritual verities represented by the Christian religion is of the most insistent and definite type, and both he and his wife are zealous members of the Second Pres- byterian Church, in which he has served as deacon and trustee and is an elder at the present time. He is a member of the University, Columbia and Country clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Board of Trade. He is a Thirty-second degree Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine.
Concerning the personality of the man no better estimate could be asked than that given by one who has known him thor- oughly as a citizen and as a man among men : "He is nobly generous, giving cheerfully and abundantly to every worthy philanthropy, but always in a quiet way, shrinking from all ostentation and display. He may be termed a silent worker, letting not his left hand know what his right hand doeth, and true as steel to whatever cause he may espouse. I have never known a man in whom there is so little of the ego as in Cortland Van Camp."
On May 28, 1876, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Van Camp to Miss Fan- nie A. Patterson, daughter of Samuel J. Patterson, who was a representative citizen of Indianapolis until the time of his death. Of the five children of this union three are living. Raymond Patterson Van Camp, the eldest son, was educated in the Michi- gan Military Academy, at Orchard Lake,
and at the first call for troops upon the in- ception of the Spanish-American War he promptly tendered his services, enlisting in Battery A, Twenty-seventh Indiana Volun- teers, and remaining-in service with his command until the same was mustered out. He is now a vice president of the Van Camp Hardware & Iron Company at In- dianapolis. Ella D., the next in order of birth, is now the wife of John T. Martin- dale. Samuel Gilbert, the second son, is a, vice president and general manager of the Van Camp Hardware & Iron Company. Cortland Malott died in 1909. The home of Mr. Van Camp is the handsome resi- dence known as 1354 North Delaware Street.
JOHN T. WILDER was born in Hunters Village, Greene County, New York, Jan- uary 31, 1830. During seven years of his early life he served an apprenticeship at the iron business, and later he built and operated general machine and millwright's works until he entered the Civil war as a soldier. During that struggle he made a gallant and conspicuous record and was brevetted a brigadier-general, and a still further honor was conferred upon him when a brigade, Wilder's Lightning Bri- gade, was named in his honor.
In 1867 General Wilder organized the Roane Iron Works, also built and operated two blast furnaces at Rockwood, Tennes- see, the first in the South, and was after- ward active in mineral development of Tennessee. The death of General Wilder occurred at Jacksonville, Florida, October 20, 1917.
HENRY WRIGHT MARSHALL. The career of Henry Wright Marshall of Lafayette is marked by efficiency and sincerity. He has not only known how to bring about effi- ciency and inaugurate improvements in business methods, but has had the courage of his convictions and could not be swerved from his purpose once he made up his mind upon a certain conrse. The years have brought him honors and wealth, but had material prosperity and proper recognition been denied, there is no doubt but that he would have acted exactly as he has, for Mr. Marshall is conscientious as well as able. He was born near Springfield, Ohio, January 29, 1865, a son of S. H. and Sarah (Wright) Marshall, the former of whom is
SAMUEL C. STIMSON
MRS. STELLA C. STIMSON
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now living at Montmoreuci, Indiana, aged eighty-nine years, but the latter is de- ceased.
Atter completing the Montmorenci High School, and the Union Business College of Lafayette, Henry Wright Marshall entered the printing and wholesale stationery house of John Rosser & Company of Lafayette, where he acquired a knowledge of the print- ing business. Six years ago Mr. Marshall purchased The Lafayette Journal and has made this newspaper one of the most force- ful in the state. While attending to the duties pertaining to the ownership of a newspaper of this importance, Mr. Marshall has become a well known figure in business circles, and is vice president of the Public Utilities Company of Evansville, Indiana, which furnishes the street railway, iuterur- ban, gas and electric service for this sec- tion. Believing in the importance and value of agriculture, Mr. Marshall is largely and intelligently interested in farming.
Politically he is a republican, and has represented his district as the successful candidate of his party to the Indiana State Assembly during the sessions of 1899, 1901 and 1903, and was speaker of the House in 1903. His fraternal connections are with the' Masons, he rising in that order to the Thirty-second degree, and he is also a Shriner; and belongs to the Elks and Knights of Pythias. Socially Mr. Marshall belongs to the Columbia Club of Indianap- olis and the Country, Lincoln and Fayette clubs of Lafayette, and Country Club of Evansville.
On February 18, 1891, Mr. Marshall was united in marriage with Laura Van Natta, a daughter of Aaron Van Natta. Mrs. Marshall was educated at De Pauw and Purdue Universities and is a lady of unusu- al mentality. Mr. and Mrs. Marshall have one son, Henry W. Marshall, Jr., a grad- uate of Purdue University, who married Helen Bromm of Evansville, Indiana. Mr. Marshall and his family are connected with Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church of La- fayette, Indiana, and have been for many years.
While in the assembly of his state Mr. Marshall distinguished himself in a number of ways, and through his instrumentality some exceedingly important legislation was secured. He has been firm and loyal in his support of his party both as an individual and through the columns of his newspaper,
and his value to his community and state cannot be easily overestimated.
. STEPHEN STRATTAN is an Indiana man whose home and business headquarters for several years have been in Chicago. Mr. Strattan belongs to Richmond, where for a number of years he was connected with the machinery manufacturing industries of that city, and his chief interest has been and is in the manufacture of agricultural machinery and in finance.
He was born at Richmond, December 8, '1868, a son of Stephen S. and Matilda (El- derkin) Strattan. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, and is a graduate of DePauw University, taking the A. B. degree in 1891, and his degree Master of Arts in 1894. After leaving college he entered Gaar, Scott & Company of Rich- mond, was paymaster of the company and later secretary and sales manager until 1911. In 1911 this company was merged with the M. Rumely Company, and Mr. Strattan was secretary of the latter until he resigned, in September, 1912.
Since October, 1912, Mr. Strattan has been president of the Agricultural Credit Company, which in 1918 was reorganized as the Commercial Acceptance Trust, of which he is the executive head. He has been a director of the Advance-Rumely Company, manufacturers of threshing ma- chinery, tractors and gas engines, since 1916, and is a director in a number of other corporations. For ten years he was a di- rector of the Second National Bank of Richmond.
While living in Richmond Mr. Stratton served as president of the school board for ten years. He is a stand-pat republican, is a member of the University Club, the Mid- lothian Country Club and the Mid-Day Club, all of Chicago, and in religious affilia- tion is an Episcopalian.
May 4, 1892, at Richmond, he married Ruby Gaar, her father being Abram Gaar, founder of Gaar, Scott & Company. Mr. Strattan has a son, Abram Gaar Strattan, who is a first lieutenant in the National army. During the war he was an aerial observer, and in 1919 was assigned to duty with the United States Food Administra- tion.
JUDGE SAMUEL C. STIMSON, former judge of the Superior Court of Vigo County,
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has dignified his forty years of service in the legal profession by many distinguished services both as a practicing lawyer and as a judge and leading citizen. .
Judge Stimson was born at Noblesville, Indiana, May 9, 1846, son of Rev. William N. and Mary Wilson (Johnson) Stimson. He was only two years of age when his mother, a native of Cincinnati, died in 1848. The father, Rev. Mr. Stimson, who was born in Worcester, New York, gave his life to Christian work as a home missionary and minister of the Presbyterian Church. He was one of the pioncer Presbyterian mis- sionaries in Indiana, beginning his work with the establishment of a mission at Noblesville in 1835. He later had charges at Franklin, Thorntown, Lebanon and other Indiana towns, and in 1888 removed to Portland, Oregon, where he died in 1903, at the age of ninety-six.
A minister's son usually spends his youth in more than one locality and Judge Stimson's early career was no exception to the rule. He finished his education at Wabash College, and later was granted an honorary degree by that institution and was elected one of its trustces. He studied law at the University of Michigan, where he was graduated LL. B. in 1872. He had begun the study of law while teaching in a seminary at Crawfordsville, and was also a student in the offices of Richard Dunnegan and Samuel Royse at Terre Haute. After his admission to the bar in 1872 he was associated for ten years with his former perceptor, Mr. Dunnegan, and had various other partners during his active member- ship in the bar. On November 1, 1897, Judge Stimson was appointed to fill a va- cancy on the bench of the Superior Court and was regularly elected to the office in 1898 and again in 1902. For ten years he upheld the best traditions of the Indiana judiciary, and his long service on the bench is one of the most honorable parts of his personal career.
Judge Stimson has long been a member of the Indiana Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He was a dele- gate to the latter association's convention at Indianapolis.
Judge Stimson first married in 1873 Miss Maggie C. Allen, daughter of Rev. A. C. Allen of Indianapolis, who was chaplain in General Benjamin Harrison's regiment during the Civil War. Rev. Mr. Allen also
had the honor of being the first graduate of Wabash College. Mrs. Stimson died in 1893, after twenty years of married com- pamonship, leaving one son, James Cam- eron Stimson. Later Judge Stimson mar- ried Stella C. Courtright, daughter of Rev. Calvin Courtright, a Presbyterian minis- ter. Judge and Mrs. Stimson have two children, Margaret Elizabeth and Stuart Courtright.
STELLA COURTRIGHT STIMSON. Among those Indiana women who not only possess but have made use of their individual tal- ents and accomplishments for doing good beyond the immediate circles of their home and intimate friendship, Mrs. Stella Courtright Stimson of Terre Haute has well earned a high place. Mrs. Stimson is the wife of Judge S. C. Stimson, one of the oldest and most prominent members of the Terre Haute bar.
One quite fairly familiar with her ex- perience and her work wrote of Mrs. Stim- son a few years ago the following brief sketch :
"She was the oldest of a large family of children born to a Presbyterian clergy- man holding a charge in a small town. Mrs. Stimson, if she were a man, might be spoken of as a live wire. In her little body, which looks frail, there is reserve force of energy simply amazing to her friends. She was reared in a deeply religions as well as in- tellectual atmosphere. Her father was a scholar, determined that his children should have advantages of education. Mrs. Stimson was sent to Wellesley College. The self-denials she practiced there might ap- pall an ordinary girl. Mrs. Stimson's diversion is in study. Some of her friends say this is her only dissipation.
"She began teaching when very young. After a brief married life she found herself a widow with a little son dependent upon her own exertions for a livelihood. She again took up teaching, in which profession she took delight, finding it an intellectual stimuhis. She taught Latin and mathemat- ies. She is conversant with French, Ger- man and Spanish. While teaching in this city at Coates College she married Judge Stimson and took up domestic duties. She is an excellent housekeeper, doing much of the actual work."
With a deep and vital interest aroused in educational affairs by her experience as
.
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a teacher, Mrs. Stimson has found time amid the cares and responsibilities of do- mestie life to arouse public opinion to new needs and conditions and to lend herself as a practical force in the working out of many admirable programs of social and civic service. Mrs. Stimson has the distine- tion of being the first woman of Terre Haute to be elected a member of the school board, an office she took hold of in January, 1912. She has for years made a close study of the fundamental problems underlying modern education, and worked with untir- ing zeal for vocational education as a part of Indiana's school system. She was a leader in her home city in advocating the teaching of sex hygiene in the public schools, and watched successfully in the State House every detail of the enactment of the Rule Abatement Bill in the General Assembly of 1915.
For a number of years she has conducted a weekly Bible class at the Young Women's Christian Association. She has appeared in many towns and cities before various organizatons to make public ad- dresses, including the Women's Union La- bel League, the Retail Clerks' Union, the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Federation of Clubs.
Mrs. Stimson is a scholar and critic, is deeply versed in modern as well as elas- sical literature, and has done much to in- terpret and extend the knowledge of stand- ard literature among the circles in which she moves.
Many articles on purely literary matters as well as on topics of general social and economic concern have appeared under her pen in local papers and magazines of na- tional character. Mrs. Stimson brings to her literary work the advantages of deep culture supplemented by extensive travel. She had been abroad, twice in Rome as well as in other centers of art and culture in modern Europe.
Of a woman who had spent so many years in intimate relationship with the pub- lic life and affairs of her home community and state it is obviously impossible to de- scribe her activities in detail. Of her varied public services doubtless she takes the greatest satisfaction in the assistance she lent in cleaning up her home city of Terre Haute and eliminating the corrupt political conditions which gave that city its undesir- able fame. It was on the evidence presented
by Mrs. Stimson and her co-workers that the hoberts gang was convicted by the Federal courts. Not long ago there appeared a para- graph in the Literary Digest with reference to Mrs. Stimson's work. It is as follows: ** Mrs. Stimson stood all day as watcher in one of the toughest districts in Terre Haute. She saw repeaters who had changed their clothing come back and vote, and said that men were brought up to vote who did not know the names under which they were to vote. She had kept records of re- peating on her poll book and a long list of those who voted twice. The evidence shown by this poll book was the principal evidence that sent the gang to prison."
As a member of the Legislative Commit- tee of the Federation of Clubs Mrs. Stim- son spent much time at the State House during the Assembly of 1913, working for the measures in which the club women were interested, notably the housing or tenement bill. In 1915 she was acting president as well as chairman of the Steering Commit- tee of the Legislative Council of Indiana Women, representing the federated organ- ization of the Women's Christian Temper- ance Union, Federation of Clubs, Mothers Congress, Franchise League, Indiana Con- sumers' League, Women's Press Club, Association of Collegiate Alumnae and Women's Relief Corps. She was chairman of the Steering Committee of the Council in 1917 when it secured the passage of the suffrage bill and helped in the enact- ment of the Constitutional Convention and Prohibition measures. The council main- tained an office in the State House, and from there conducted a publicity and edu- cational campaign among the women of the state. When all the credits have been prop- erly apportioned it will doubtless be found that Mrs. Stimson is deserving of much praise for the fact that Indiana was aligned in the prohibition column of states. The Chicago Tribune referred to her at one time as the state's "brainiest woman."
In the capacity of a Florence Crittenton board member, she has always been much interested in the problem of the unfortu- nate and erring girl, and hence in the elimination of the dens of vice of her home town.
For all this varied work and service Mrs. Stimson has doubtless found the greatest satisfaction in her own conscience, but it is only natural that she should be gratified by
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the appreciation that has been paid her for her ettorts in behalf of clean government, woman suffrage and prohibition by the press of the United States from coast to coast.
JOSEPH GREGORY ELDER, who died Decem- ber 2, 1918, was one of the oldest active business men of Terre Haute, where he lived forty-seven years, with a record of continuous advancement and increasing achievement. During some of the first years of his residence in this city he worked as a humble mechanic. Mr. Elder was president of the Citizens Savings & Loan Association of Terre Haute, one of the largest organizations of its kind in point of assets in the State of Indiana.
He had an interesting family history. He was born on a farm in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1852. Aside from his home city of Terre Haute no place in the world had more associations for Mr. Elder than that old farm on which he was born and on which his father and grand- father also first saw the light of day, and a part of the soil of which is restricted as the burial place of his great-grandfather, grandfather and father. The farm has been in the possession of the Elder family for 127 years and is now owned by a mem- ber of the fourth generation. Its original purchaser was the great-grandfather, Wil- liam Elder, a native of Scotland who went to Pennsylvania in colonial times. He was one of three brothers to emigrate, and one of them settled in Michigan and another in Ohio. William Elder acquired the 190 acres of land when it was an uncleared wilderness, and it is due to the successive labors of the Elder family that it now con- stitutes a model farm with all the modern improvements and one of the most valuable individual estates in Bedford County. On this land was born the grandfather, James Elder, and he spent his entire life there. John Elder, father of Joseph G., was born on the old homestead, and died there when his son Joseph was eighteen months of age. The mother of Joseph G. Elder, Louisa Viekroy Elder, was a native of the same section of Pennsylvania, where her people were pioneers. Joseph G. Elder was the sixth in a family of seven children. In 1865, when he was thirteen years of age, he went with his mother to Cumberland,
Maryland, where he lived during his early life in Pennsylvania.
In June, 1871, he came alone to Terre Haute, and his mother soon afterward fol- lowed him to this city and died at his home in 1904, at the age of seventy-eight.
When Mr. Elder arrived in Terre Haute his total possessions amounted to only 20 cents. With only this between him and starvation he was not slow in connecting himself with some work, and he found his first employment in the James Hook plan- ing mill at wages of $1.75 a day. He proved an expert man in handling planing mill machinery, and was given substantial in- creases in salary, and continued with the plant until it was burned in 1880. In the meantime, in 1879, he had begun general contracting on his own account, and he con- tinued that business more or less actively for a period of fifteen years. He had also spent two years as manager of a farm in Kansas for W. R. McKeen, of Terre Haute, and for three years was superintendent of the Terre Haute Street Railway Company, until its motive power was changed to elec- tricity.
In 1894 Mr. Elder entered the real estate business with I. H. Royse, and after six years he took up the business on his own account as a partner with John Foulkes. In 1909 he organized the Elder & Trout Company, a complete organization for han- dling real estate, loans and insurance, and the firm has handled some of the largest real estate transactions in Western Indiana.
Mr. Elder became secretary of the Wa- bash Savings, Loan & Building Association in 1894, and that business was largely de- veloped under his personal direction and ability until it became the largest associa- tion in Western Indiana and fourth in size in the entire state. Its name has since been changed to the Citizens Savings & Loan Association, with Mr. Elder as presi- dent. Through this association and through his private business affairs Mr. Elder prob- ably did as much as any other citizen to- ward the upbuilding and development of Terre Haute and vicinity.
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