USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 68
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Mr. W. F. Bockhoff is well known in mechanical and business circles, being a member of the National and State Manu- facturers' Association, the National and State Chambers of Commerce, the National Machine Tool Builders' Association, and many civic organizations. He is a member of the Commercial Club, the Rotary Club, is an Elk, a Shriner, and a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason.
DR. RYELL T. MILLER. South Bend and St. Joseph County have received many im- pressions upon their development and his-
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tory from members of the Miller family, prominent here since earliest pioneer times. One prominent representative of the fam- ily today is Dr. Ryell T. Miller. He is al- ways known as Doctor Miller though he retired from the practice of dentistry sev- eral years ago. While he has never been at any pains to build up a law practice, he is an acknowledged lawyer of ability and of thorough training, and is a former presi- dent of the St. Joseph County Bar Asso- ciation.
He was born on a farm near South Bend, March 1, 1853, a son of Daniel H. and Mary O. (Price) Miller. His great-grandfather in the paternal line was Elder Jacob Mil- ler, Sr., a pioneer minister of the Brethren Church. He was born of German parents in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in 1735. He joined the church and became a preacher when little more than a boy, and in 1765 he moved to Southern Vir- ginia, where his son, David, grandfather of Doctor Miller, was born. In 1800 El- der Jacob Miller moved to Ohio on the great Miami River south of Dayton. From there he came to Indiana, locating on the Four Mile Creek, and in 1809 organized the First Brethren Church there. Elder Jacob Miller was the father of nine sons and three daughters, all of whom were members of the church and stannch defend- ers of the faith ad several of the sons were ordained as ministers. When Elder Jacob Miller died in 1819 there were over 100 grandchildren, who carried on into the next generation the sturdy faith, the sound character and the industry which have been generally characteristic of this interesting family. An appropriate stone marks the last resting place of Elder Jacob Miller near Lower Miami Church where his last labors were finished.
In the spring of 1830 Elder David Mil- ler, Sr., grandfather of Doctor Miller, with three other brothers and their families, and a great number of other relatives, came to St. Joseph County and took up Gov- ernment land in the present German Town- ship. Elder David Miller and his brother Aaron were appointed county commission- ers and helped organize St. Joseph County as well as Elkhart County. Their names appear in this connection in all the his- tories of those counties. Elder David Mil- ler's thirteen children included Daniel H. Miller, who for many years was a pros-
perous and enterprising farmer in St. Joseph County. The wife of Daniel H. Miller, Mary O. Price, was a daughter of Joshua Madison Price, a descendant of Christopher Price who leased to Lord Bal- timore for ninety-nine years large tracts of land where the City of Baltimore, Mary- land, is now located. More recent des- cendants settled in Kentucky with Daniel Boone and later in Virginia, where Joshua Madison Price was born. He came to St. Joseph County in 1830, his worldly pos- sessions at that time consisting of a home- spun suit and an axe. He went through all the hardships of a pioneer and in time was rated as one of the successful and pros- perous farmers of St. Joseph County. He married Frances Houston.
Dr. Ryell T. Miller spent his early life in the country near South Bend and at- tended the district schools, also the South Bend High School, and in 1872 before dental graduates and colleges of dentistry were in vogue he took up the study of dentistry with Dr. D. E. Cummins. When well qualified for the work of his profes- sion he moved out to Stuart, Iowa, in 1874. At that time there was no other dentist within forty miles. In 1877 that section of Iowa was devastated by the grasshopper plague. People had little money to buy the actual necessities and in that situation Doctor Miller returned to South Bend and opened an office on South Michigan Street. He continued his practice until 1888 when his eyesight and general health failed and he was obliged to discontinue his chosen profession. He then gathered together an historical exposition representing all phases of prehistoric and Indian life and traveled exhibiting it for several years.
In the meantime he was studying law, and in 1895 received his LL. B. degree from the University of Notre Dame. The following year he took a post-graduate course, receiving his LL. M. degree. Thus for a quarter of a century he has been a member of the St. Joseph County Bar. By 1894 his real estate interests had acquired an importance that demanded most of his energy and time. He platted a large tract of land in the north part of South Bend, known as the Shetterley place, which has become one of the most beautiful and im- portant additions to the city. In connec- tion with other business enterprises he has operated the Miller Sash and Screen fac-
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tory of South Bend. This is the largest factory specializing in that line of work in Northern Indiana.
Doctor Miller has never held a public office, though in 1889 . he was democratic candidate for mayor of South Bend. Party success has meant less to him than the se- lection of candidates with proper capabili- ties for the offices they aspired to. In mat- ters of religion Doctor Miller holds no church membership, is a liberal independ- ent thinker, giving credit to all churches in their work of elevating the moral condi- tions of mankind. For many years he has been a close bible student. His study and thought have led him to emphasize the work of Christ as of greater benefit and impor- tance than his death.
March 18, 1882, Doctor Miller joined the Odd Fellows and has been in close com- munion with the order for over thirty-five years and is one of the most prominent members of the order in Northern Indi- ana. He belongs to all branches, and holds the rank of lieutenant-colonel, retired, in the Patriarch Militant Branch. He is a member of and director in the St. Joseph County Historical Society.
June 30, 1885, Doctor Miller married Annie P. Shetterley, the sweetheart and associate of his school days. She was the daughter of John and Christina (Adams) Shetterley. Her mother was a descendant of the historic New England Adams fami- lies. Mrs. Miller is widely known in South Bend. She was a member of the first class graduated from the high school of that city and has always been a hard working student. She is a member of the Progress Club of South Bend, the Daughters of Re- bekah, the Woman's Relief Corps and other organizations. Much of her time is spent in the enjoyment of a private library com- prising several thousand well-selected vol- umes located in her own home. Doctor and Mrs. Miller's children were: Rex T. Miller, a contracting plumber; Frank Le- land Miller, who died at the age of seven- teen ; and an adopted daughter, Besse A. Miller, now the wife of Victor E. Paxon, assistant cashier of the Farmers Trust Company. Doctor Miller has a grandson, Leland Miller, who is a bright and prom- ising lad of fourteen and a student in the South Bend High School.
WILL J. DAVIS, former president of the Indiana Society of Chicago, who in recent years spent much of his time in his country home at Willowdale Farm near Crown Point, spent his boyhood days at Elkhart, and his service as a Union soldier is also credited to the State of Indiana.
He was born on a farm near the Village of Chelsea in Washtenaw County, Michi- gan, February 8, 1844, son of Thomas Gleason and Ann Isabella (Me Whorter) Davis. His father was born in Massachu- setts in 1808 and died in 1883. The mother was born at Belfast, Ireland, in 1811 and died in 1896. Thomas G. Davis early be- came connected with woolen mill opera- tion in New York State, established a wool- en mill at Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County, Michigan, and from that entered the railroad contracting business with the Michigan Central Company. He construc- ted many miles of the old Michigan South- ern and Northern Indiana Railway, now the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and had the contract for construction of much of this line across Northern Indiana and around the southern bend of Lake Mich- igan through the swamps into Chicago. Thomas G. Davis took the first engine and train of cars that ran into Chicago from the east over this newly completed road in' 1852. He also built the Three Rivers Branch, the Jackson Branch, and the Air Line Division from Goshen to Toledo. After the failure of the Railroad Company in 1857 he was for several years a hard- ware merchant at Elkhart. During the Civil war he built railways in the State of Tennessee. and after the war con- structed a coal road in southern Illinois. Thomas G. Davis organized at Elkhart the first Masonic Lodge of the town and was its first Worshipful Master.
The Davis family moved to Elkhart in 1852 when Will J. Davis was eight years old. He went to school there and had as school mates some of the men of that town who afterwards attained prominence both there and elsewhere. In 1862 at the age of eighteen he tried to get his services enlisted in a local company, but was not accepted. Later in the same year he went to Baltimore and volunteered in the United States Navy, being assigned to duty on the Mortar Schooner Racer of the North Atlan- tic Squadron. For three months he served
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as steward for Paymaster C. H. Kirken- dall and eventually was transferred with Paymaster Kirkendall to the Blackhawk, the flagship of Admiral Porter in the Mis- sissippi Squadron. During the remainder of the war he had the honor of serving under that great naval commander, whose achievements form one of the most interest- ing and thrilling chapters of the Civil con- flict. He was in the Red River campaign and at times came up into the Ohio River. When the Blackhawk was in action he was assigned duty in superintending the passing of ammunition from the hold of the gunboat to the guns on the main and upper decks. After the Blackhawk was burned in April, 1865, Mr. Davis was de- tailed to go to Washington and make a final report of the vessel's accounts. He re- ceived his honorable discharge in October 1865.
Soon after returning to Elkhart he joined another young man in establishing a groe- ery store at Warsaw, Indiana. In that way he formed business acquaintances in Chi- cago, and was connected with a broker- age firm in that city until 1869. He was then appointed as first assistant to C. H. Kirkendall in the Internal Revenue Service and took up his residence at Natchez, Mis- sissippi. He remained in that city until May, 1873. While there he assisted in producing the first republican newspaper in Mississippi, named the New South. He was also one of the few passengers taken aboard the famous steamboat Robert E. Lee when in an exciting race she defeated the steamboat Natchez in a run from New Orleans to St. Louis. Mr. Davis wrote an account of this boat race for one of the southern newspapers.
On returning to Chicago in 1873 Mr. Davis became connected with the passenger department of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway. These duties brought him into association with theatrical and circus managers, among them being W. W. Cole of the Cole Circus. Mr. Cole induced him in 1875 to take charge of the ticket office of the Adelphi Theater, which had been rebuilt on the ruins of the old post- office and occupied the present site of the First National Bank of Chicago. Mr. Davis soon took charge of the Adelphi as manager and that was the beginning of a long and notable career as a theatrical manager and owner. He remained there until Mr. Cole
sold the theater in 1876 and then took the original Georgia Minstrels to California for Colonel Jack Haverly. While in San Francisco Mr. Davis became acquainted with Mr. T. H. Goodwin, general passenger agent of the Southern Pacific. This ac- quaintance led to him returning to the railroad business. At Chicago he was ap- pointed assistant general passenger agent for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. In 1878 several American rail- roads and the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany effected an agreement to provide a through route transportation schedule around practically half the Globe. As a representative of this transportation syndi- cate Mr. Davis went to Australia and New Zealand to give publicity to the American routes from those countries to Europe. In all his varied career Mr. Davis found more interest in this experience than in any other.
He returned to Chicago in 1878. In the meantime Jack Haverly had taken over the Colonel Mapleson Grand Opera Com- pany. Mr. Davis handled the transporta- tion of this organization for Mr. Haverly and subsequently took over the old Haverly Theater and became its manager. Later he went across the street and managed the Columbia Theater and for a time was on the road. Along about this time the Haymarket Theater on the west side was projected, and Mr. Davis took hold of this enterprise with the financial backing of Mr. Cole. He completed this beautiful theater, managed it, and from 1890 to 1900 leased and managed the Columbia theater. In the Columbia deal the firm of Hayman and Davis was originated, and in 1900 after the burning of the Columbia, built and owned the present Illinois Theater. Mr. Davis was also one of the owners and build- ers of the ill-fated Iroquois Theater, and was one of its managers at the time it was burned. This was one of the heart-break- ing experiences of his life. He also became interested in Powers Theater, and though in recent years he retired from active theatrical management he still retained ex- tensive financial interests in Chicago play- houses.
Mr. Davis conducted the only tours of America made by the famous actor Lester Wallack. It was on one of these tours that he learned of the formation of the Chicago Church Choir Pinafore Company,
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which he induced Mr. Haverly to finance and book all over the country. His judg- ment was correct, as no company ever achieved greater musical success. His con- Lection with that company had a special personal interest for Mr. Davis. It was then that he met Jessie Bartlett, who was the "Buttercup" of the company. He and Miss Bartlett were married March 31, 1880. Jessie Bartlett Davis, who died May 14, 1905, was well known to a whole generation of theater goers as both a Grand and light opera singer. Her debut in Grand Opera was with the Mapleson Company in the role of Siebel in Faust to the Marguerite of Mme. Adelina Patti. Her greatest suc- cess in English Opera was with the well known "Bostonians." She was principal contralto of this company for more than ten years. Her singing of the popular song "Oh, Promise Me," in the opera Robin Hood gave her a vote never equalled by any American singer. She was born in Morris, Illinois, and started on her musical career as a soloist in a Chicago Church.
In 1889 Mr. Davis acquired an eighty acre farm adjoining the city of Crown Point in Lake County. This farm has since been considerably enlarged and is widely known as Willowdale. One of its features is the noted Crown Point race track. Some very fine trotting horses have been bred at Willowdale, and altogether the Davis fam- ily own about eleven hundred acres at Crown Point, divided into four different farms. Mr. Davis was a member of the Union League, Chicago Athletic, Fellow- ship, the Green Room, South Shore Coun- try, Indiana Society, and the Strollers clubs. He was also a member of George H. Thomas Post Grand Army of the Re- public, and of the Farragut Navy Veterans.
By his first wife Mr. Davis had two sons, one dying in infancy. June 12, 1907, he married Mary Ellen O'Hagan. The Davis residence is one of the rare and in- teresting homes of Chicago at 4740 Grand Boulevard. In his city residence he had surrounded himself with many things that wealth and taste can afford, and spent much of his time and perhaps found his chief pleasure in his collection of books, having many rare and old editions. In the Davis collection of rare and exquisite Per- sian and Turkish rugs, are some among the most famous known to rug connoisseurs.
WALTER CARLETON WOODWARD who was director of the Indiana State Centennial celebration in 1915-16, through appointment of the State Historical Commission, is one of the most prominent leaders in the Friends Church of Indiana, and is a former Professor of History in Earlham College at Richmond.
He was born near Mooresville, Indiana, November 28, 1878 a son of Ezra H. and Amanda (Morris) Woodward. The family moved to Oregon in 1880, where Mr. Wood- ward's father for thirty years has edited and published the Newberg Graphie at Newberg, Oregon. He has also served as a member of the Oregon Legislature and is president of the Board of Trustees of Paci- fic College.
Walter C. Woodward though a native of Indiana grew up in the northwest, and was graduated from Pacific College at New- berg with the A. B. degree in 1898. He then returned to Richmond and received his degree Bachelor of Literature from Earlham College in 1899, and did post- graduate work later in the University of California at Berkeley, from which he has the Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded in 1910.
Mr. Woodward was at one time associate editor of his father's paper the Newberg Graphic. During 1906-07 he was Professor of History and Political Science in Pacific College, and held the chair of History and Political Science in Earlham College from 1910 to 1915. Mr. Woodward is at present General Secretary of "The Five Years Meeting of the Friends in America" and is editor of The American Friend at Rich- mond. He is author of the book "The Rise and Development of Political Parties in Oregon." He has an active part in Earlham College, being president of the Board of Trustees.
September 10, 1912, at Remington, In- diana, Mr. Woodward married Catherine Hartman, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. R. Hartman. Mrs. Woodward graduated from Earlham College in 1911. She is of Mayflower stock, a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. Mr. and Mrs. Woodward have two small daughters, Bernice Louise and Mary Ellen.
JACOB PIATT DUNN, the author of "In- diana and Indianans," is a native of In-
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diana, born at Lawrenceburg, April 12, 1855. Both of his parents were also natives
of Indiana, and of Lawrenceburg. His father, Jacob Piatt Dunn, Sr., born June 24, 1811, was a son of Judge Isaac Dunn, who was born in Middlesex County, New Jersey, September 27, 1783, and was one of the earliest emigrants to the Whitewater Valley. His father, Hugh Dunn, came west in 1788, arriving with his family at Fort Miami in December, and moving over into the Whitewater Valley as soon as Gen- eral Wayne's defeat of the Indians at the Fallen Timbers made it at all safe. The Dunns of Middlesex were descendants of Hugh Dunn, an Irish Baptist exhorter, who was one of the founders of the Baptist Church of Piscataway Township in 1689, and who left to his family a legacy of Bible names. There were twenty-three Dunns in the New Jersey Revolutionary troops from Middlesex, eight commissioned officers and fifteen privates, and every one of them had a Bible name except Capt. Hugh Dunn. The family tradition is that Hugh Dunn, the father of Judge Isaac Dunn, emigrated from Ireland, and married his cousin, Mercy Dunn, of the Midlesex family.
On November 22, 1804, Judge Dunn mar- ried Frances Piatt, also of a New Jersey Revolutionary family, her father, Jacob Piatt, and her uncles, Daniel and William Piatt, being officers in the Continental Line, and members of the Society of the Cincin- nati. The New Jersey Piatts were descend- ants of John Piatt (or Pyatt), son of a French Huguenot who took refuge in Hol- land after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. John Piatt emigrated to New Jersey prior to 1760, and settled in Middle- sex County. He left five sons, of whom Jacob was the youngest.
On November 28, 1837, Jacob Piatt Dunn, Sr., married Harriet Louisa Tate, a daughter of William Tate, who came from Boston, Massachusetts, to Lawrenceburg, and there, on March 27, 1816, married Anna Kincaid, daughter of Warren Kincaid, a Revolutionary soldier from New York. Jacob Piatt Dunn, Sr., was a "Forty- Niner" in California, and in 1861 located in Indianapolis. where he was a well known business man till his death on November 21, 1890. His four surviving children, Mrs. Louisa M. Tutewiler, Catherine Dunn, Dr. Isaac Dunn, and Jacob Piatt Dunn, are all residents of Indianapolis.
After several years in private schools Jacob Piatt Dunn entered the public schools of indianapolis in 1867, and after four years entered Earlham College, where he was graduated in the scientific department in 1814. He was graduated in law at the University of Michigan in 1876, and pur- sued his studies in the office of McDonald & Butler, after which he entered into prac- tice. He went to Colorado in the Leadville excitement of 1879 as a prospector, and drifted into the newspaper business, serv- ing on the Maysville Democrat, Rocky Mountain News, Denver Tribune, Leadville Chronicle and Denver Republican. Return- ing to Indianapolis in 1884 he resumed the practice of law, but took up newspaper work again on the Journal in 1888. In the fall of that year he was put in charge of the literary bureau of the Democratic State Central Committee, and in 1889 was elected state librarian by the Legislature and re- elected in 1891. During his term he wrote regularly for the Sentinel, and at its close, in 1893, he took a position as editorial writer on that paper. This he retained until 1904, with the exception of three months in 1901, when he filled the unex- pired term of Eudorus M. Johnson as city controller, under Mayor Taggart. In 1903 he was appointed city controller by Mayor Holtzman, and served through his term to January 1, 1906. He then acted as auditor for Winona Assembly for six months, and as an editorial writer for the Indianapolis Star for a year and a half. For the next two years he was engaged in the prepara- tion of "Greater Indianapolis," and in special work on the Miami language for the United States Bureau of Ethnology. On January 1, 1910, he was appointed chief deputy by County Treasurer Fishback, and served until 1912; and was again city con- troller in 1914-1916.
On November 23, 1892, Mr. Dunn was united in marriage with Charlotte Elliott Jones, daughter of Aquilla Jones and Flora C. (Elliott) Jones. Her father was the son of Elisha P. Jones, the oldest of six brothers, of Welsh descent, sons of Benja- min and Mary Jones, who emigrated in 1831 from Stokes (now Forsvth) Countv, North Carolina, to Columbus, Indiana, whither Elisha P. had preceded them. Elisha P. Jones married Harriet Hinkson, daughter of a Revolutionary soldier from Pennsylvania. Aquilla lost his father when
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two years old, and, growing up, entered the store of his uncle, Aquilla, Sr., at Co- lumbus. In 1857, at the age of twenty-one, he came to Indianapolis as a partner of Aquilla, Sr., in the shoe business. Later he formed a partnership with Joseph Vin- nedge, and still later with E. L. and R. S. Menee, forming the wholesale firm of Jones, McKee & Company, which continued till his death on January 10, 1888. On October 14, 1868, Mr. Jones married Flora C. El- liott, daughter of Gen. W. J. Elliott, who came to Indianapolis from Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1848, and was for a num- ber of years the leading hotel keeper of the city. The other surviving children of Aquilla Jones and wife are Robert S. Jones, one of the proprietors and publishers of the Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen, and Florence L. Jones in charge of the Refer- ence Department of the Indianapolis Pub- lie Library. Mr. and Mrs. Dunn have two children, Caroline and Eleanor.
Mr. Dunn has written a number of books, including: "Massacres of the Mountains; a History of the Indian Wars of the Far West" (Harpers 1886) ; "Indiana, a Re- demption from Slavery" (Am. Common- wealth Series, 1888, revised edition, 1904) ;
"True Indian Stories" (Indianapolis, 1908) ; the "History of Indianapolis" and "The Unknown God" (1914). He is also author of several pamphlets and magazine articles on historical and economical topics, among which are "Manual of the Election Law of Indiana" (1888), prepared by order of the State Legislature, and used until the state was familiar with the Aus- tralian ballot law; "The Mortgage Evil" (Journal of Political Economy, 1888) ; "The Tax Law of Indiana, and the Science of Taxation" (1891) ; "The Libraries of In- diana" (1892), prepared for The World's Fair Commission ; "The World's Silver Question" (1894), a plea for international bimetalism; and "The Negro Question" (1904), a protest against the proposal to partially disfranchise the states that had adopted an educational qualification for suffrage, which was widely circulated and was instrumental in killing that proposal. He has been secretary of the Indiana His- torical Society since reorganization in 1886, and has contributed several numbers to its publications. He was a member of the Public Library Commission of Indiana from its organization in 1899 until 1919.
Vol. V -- 25
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