USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood, Volume V > Part 8
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Following the war Mr. McAbee returned to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and was em- ployed by the Pennsylvania Railroad be- tween Pittsburg and Altoona for three years. He then came to Indianapolis and was a roller in the rolling mill, was em- ployed in a similar capacity at Greencastle for ten years, and later at Muncie, Indiana, for eight years. Mr. McAbee finally left the ranks of industrial workers to become state factory inspector of Indiana, an of- fice he held and in which he rendered most capable service under the administration of Governors Mount, Durbin, and Hanly. He was appointed by Governor Marshall adjutant at the Indiana State Soldiers
Home, serving there two years. In 1909 Mr. McAbee came to Indianapolis and formed a copartnership with Mr. Ragan in the coal business. In 1914 they formed the Ragan-McAbee Coal Company. They do an extensive business all over Indiana and in Michigan as wholesale jobbers, and represent some of the largest mines in the great bituminous coal area of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio and under normal con- ditions also supply coal from the anthra- cite and Pocahontas mines of West Vir- ginia. They have a very flourishing busi- ness, which is constantly increasing.
Mr. McAbee is a republican. He has been a loyal worker in the Methodist Epis- copal Church since early manhood and has been active both in church and Sunday School in Indianapolis and Greencastle. He was raised a Mason in Marion Lodge No. 35, Free and Accepted Masons, at In- dianapolis, served as master of the Ma- sonic Lodge at Greencastle, and demitted to Delaware Lodge No. 46, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, at Muncie, Indiana, where he now holds membership. He is a mem- ber of Greencastle Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. He is also one of the prominent Grand Army of the Republic men of In- diana, having served as post commander of Greencastle Post No. 4, and also as junior vice commander of the state en- campment.
December 24, 1869, Mr. McAbee married Miss Mary L. Richards, now deceased. They had three sons and three daughters. Two of the sons and one daughter are liv- ing, Daniel H. and W. D. McAbee, and Mazie U. Pittinger. Daniel graduated from the Indianapolis High School and the Homeopathic Medical College in Chicago, and is now in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army. W. D. Mc- Abee is connected with the State Board of Hygiene as chemist. On November 6, 1912, Mr. McAbee married for his second wife Mary Elizabeth Stilz of Indianapolis. Both Mr. and Mrs. McAbee are members of the Central Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church.
JOHN KLINE BURGESS has figured in Newcastle business affairs for a number of years. He has been a teacher, clerk of the Henry Circuit Court, member of the Henry County Bar, banker, and at present a real estate and loan dealer.
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Mr. Burgess was born at Noblesville, In- diana, in 1874, son of Daniel W. and Phoebe A. (Miesse) Burgess. He is of Scotch and English ancestry. His first American ancestor, Daniel Burgess, came from England and settled in the New Eng- land colonies. He was the great-great-great- grandfather of John K. Burgess. Later one branch of the family came west to Highland County, Ohio, and another went to Virginia. Mr. Burgess' grandfather, Oliver Burgess, moved to Hamilton County, Indiana, in 1835, making the trip with an ox team and encountering all the pioneer conditions and difficulties. He set- tled north of Noblesville and acquired two sections of land there. Daniel W. Bur- gess was a farmer and merchant.
John K. Burgess attended school at No- blesville, and graduated from the Newcastle High School in 1895, being second in schol- arship in his class, though he had com- pleted the four years course in three years. He also took a year of correspondence work with the Chicago Extension University, and for two years studied under the direction of the Columbian University of Washing- ton, District of Columbia. He graduated in 1900.
For six years Mr. Burgess taught school in Henry County. For six years he served as deputy county clerk, and in November, 1906, was elected on the republican ticket to the office of clerk of the Henry Circuit Court, and filled that position four years. In 1910 Mr. Burgess assisted in organiz- ing the Farmers National Bank at New- castle, Indiana, and served as its assistant cashier five years. He resigned to estab- lish his present business, real estate and loans, and has conducted that very suc- cessfully for the past three years. He buys and sells much property on his own ac- count and also has acted as broker in a number of important transactions. He as- sisted in organizing the Farmers National Bank at Sulphur Springs, Indiana, and also the Farmers Bank at Mooreland. He owns a half interest in the Burgess Broth- ers Furniture Company, and has some val- uable property interests at Newcastle and vicinity.
In 1895 Mr. Burgess married Miss Ber- tha Bunbar, daughter of John W. and Sarah (Houchins) Bunbar of Mount Sum- mit, Indiana. Mrs. Burgess died in Au- gust, 1917, the mother of three children :
Bernice B., Edna and John D. Mr. Bur- gess is a member of several secret and be- nevolent orders and is a member of the Christian Church, which he has served as treasurer and as a member of the official board for several years.
CHARLES REMSTER has been an active member of the Indiana bar nearly thirty years, a resident of Indianapolis since 1895, and among other distinctions asso- ciated with his professional career was for a term of six years judge of the Marion Circuit Court.
Judge Remster was born on a farm in Van Buren Township, Fountain County, Indiana, July 28, 1862, a son of Andrew and Tamson (Smith) Remster, both na- tives of New Jersey. Andrew Remster was of Holland Dutch stock, his father having come from the city of Amsterdam to America. Tamson Smith was of Eng- lish lineage. Andrew Remster and wife were married in New Jersey January 6, 1848, and soon afterward moved to Ohio and a year later to a tract of wild land in Fountain County, Indiana. The father died there in 1865, when Judge Remster was only three years of age. His widow subsequently married Benjamin Strader, who died six months later, leaving her twice a widow. She nobly discharged her duties and responsibilities to her children, five by the first marriage and one by the second, and spent her last years at Coving- ton, Indiana, where she died in 1901. She was a devout member of the Baptist Church.
Charles Remster grew up on a farm, at- tended district schools and in 1882 grad- uated from the Veedersburg High School. He attended Purdue University at Lafay- ette, and left college to read law with a member of the bar at Veedersburg. He was admitted in Fountain County in 1889, and for six years practiced at Veedersburg. He gave up his position as a rising attor- ney of the bar of his native county and moved to Indianapolis in 1895. Judge Remster has found a growing business as a lawyer sufficient to satisfy his ambitions and his energy, and he has never sought official preferment except in the strict lines of the profession. He was an assistant prosecuting attorney of Marion County at the time he was elected to the Marion Circuit Court in 1908. Judge Remster
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filled out the full term of six years for which he was elected, beginning his duties November 11, 1908, and leaving the bench in November, 1914. He performed his du- ties as a judge with dignity and signal abil- ity, and his former services in that posi- tion are widely appreciated by the Indian- apolis bar. Since retiring from the bench he has been member of the well known law firm of Smith, Remster, Hornbrook & Smith.
Judge Remster is a democrat in politics and in 1907 was president of the Demo- cratic Club. He is a member of the Ma- sons, Knights of Pythias, the Indiana Bar Association, and belongs to various civie and social organizations. October 30, 1894, he married Miss Isabelle McDaniel. She was born and reared in Hendricks County, where her father, Samuel McDaniel, was a farmer.
WILLIAM H. COLEMAN has been a resi- dent of Indianapolis for thirty-eight years, and his name here and elsewhere is very prominently identified with the lumber in- dustry as a manufacturer and dealer.
He was born at the village of Hawley in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania, where his father, Richard Coleman, was a merchant. The Coleman ancestors came originally from Manchester, England. In the early childhood of William H. Coleman his father died, and when he was a boy of five he was taken by his widowed mother, Mrs. Mary (Clark) Coleman, to Canisteo, New York, where his years to manhood were spent, chiefly on a farm and in the prac- tice of its duties and attending district schools. His education was finished at the South Danville Academy. He could enter- tain no prospect of a fortune except such as he would gain by his own labors and exer- tions. One of his early experiences after leaving school was teaching for three months in a country district. He then rented a tract of land and started farm- ing on the shares. Farming was his occu- pation during the summer and in the win- ter he bought, milled and marketed lum- ber. That was his introduction to what has become his chief industry in life.
In 1880 Mr. Coleman came to Indian- apolis as an employe of Henry Alfrey, an old time lumber merchant of the city. Later he acquired a partnership with Mr. Alfrey and finally owned the entire busi-
ness. As a lumber manufacturer and dealer his operations have covered a wide field. In 1892 the headquarters of the busi- ness were removed to Terre Haute, in 1896 to Memphis, Tennessee, and two years later to Jackson, Tennessee, where the mills are still operated.
But during all these changes Mr. Cole- man has maintained his home in Indian- apolis and in many ways aside from bus- iness has been identified with its growth and prosperity. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church and a republican voter.
In 1889 Mr. Coleman married Mrs. Sal- lie E. Vajen, daughter of Colonel M. A. Downing, one of the foremost men of his day in Indianapolis. Mr. and Mrs. Cole- man have one daughter, Suemma V., the wife of W. A. Atkins.
ROY H. PUTERBAUGH. By nature Roy H. Puterbaugh has been a teacher and edu- cator. He has put himself through several higher institutes of education by his own efforts and has continued to qualify him- self for still higher places of responsibility. He is now manager of the Lafayette Bus- iness College of Lafayette, and has made a splendid record in the reorganization and expansion of that institution.
Mr. Puterbaugh, a native of Indiana, was born on a farm near Oswego March 1, .1883, and is the son of Amsey H. and Rilla (Clem) Puterbaugh. His father was born at Elkhart, Indiana, December 30, 1851, and was engaged in educational work, which alternated with his other calling as a minister of the gospel. He died at Elk- hart February 28, 1903. As a teacher he established the graded system of the pub- lic schools at Leesburg, Indiana, and was at one time principal of the high school of Oswego, which school he organized. For thirty-three years he was a regularly ordained minister of the Church of the Brethren. In 1876 he married Miss Rilla. Clem, also a teacher, who was born at Mil- ford, Indiana, August 28, 1856.
Roy H. Puterbaugh was educated in the public schools of Elkhart County, and in the intervals of other work, chiefly as a teacher, he completed courses in the Man- chester Business College, Elkhart Normal School and Business Institute, Manchester Academy, Mount Morris College in Illi- nois, and in 1911 graduated from the Uni-
LUKE W. DUFFEY
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versity of Michigan, receiving the Bache- lor of Arts degree.
After leaving the university he taught English in the Elkhart High School three years, and for one year was principal of the Marion Business College. In 1914 Mr. Puterbaugh came to Lafayette as manager of the local business college, and has made this, one of the fourteen branches of the Indiana Business College, not only one of the very best of that chain of schools but also one of the best business training schools in the middle west.
April 17, 1915, Mr. Puterbaugh married Miss Alma Ludwig. Mrs. Puterbaugh, a daughter of Robert C. and Carrie (Wag- ner) Ludwig, was born in Chicago, May 20, 1886. Her parents were also natives of Chicago. Her father, who had a great deal of technical and artistic ability, was an engraver and designer by trade, and for a number of years was superintendent of the engraving department of P. F. Petti- bone & Company.
Mrs. Puterbaugh inherits much of her father's artistic temperament, and is widely known for her work in china decoration. She was a member of the Atlan Ceramic Club of Chicago, one of the largest organ- izations of its kind in the world. She is also an artist in oil and water colors. Her work has received marked recognition at « the exhibits at the Chicago Art Institute.
JOHN F. WILLIAMS, formerly in the shoe business at Anderson, is now sole proprie- tor of the J. F. Williams establishment, automobile tires and accessories and auto- mobile agents. Mr. Williams has had a very successful experience as an automo- bile salesman, and has gained a splendid business clientele as a result of his thor- ough and painstaking work and service.
He was born at Muncie, Indiana, in 1878, son of Rufus Hickman and Mary S. (Bose) Williams. He is of Scotch and German ancestry. In 1880, when he was a year and a half old, his parents removed to Anderson, where his father established a shoe business, of which he continued pro- prietor for many years. He is still living but retired from business. A republican in politics, he was formerly quite active in the ranks and at one time was candidate for county clerk of Madison County.
John F. Williams had a public school education at Anderson and was a student
of the commercial course at Notre Dame University in 1897-99, graduating in the latter year. On returning to Anderson he entered the shoe business with his father at 15 Meridian Street, and made himself thoroughly familiar with the work and proved himself valuable to the firm in building up and extending its trade. In 1906 he and his brother Percy P. Williams bought the store from their father and conducted it as Williams Brothers until 1914, when John F. Williams withdrew, selling out to his brother. In the mean- time he had bought the Auto Inn Garage at Anderson, and conducted it as the J. F. Williams Auto Inn until February 1, 1913. This business he then sold to John H. Ryan. His next position in the automobile busi- ness was as salesman for the Apperson cars. He represented that company over five counties, Grant, Delaware, Madison, Henry, and Hamilton, and did much to popularize and extend the use and sale of the Apperson cars over this section of Indiana. In 1915 he took the local agency in Madison County for the Hudson and Chalmers cars, with salesroom in the Auto Inn. September 2, 1916, he established his present salesroom at 28 West Ninth Street, where he handles the agency for the Hudson and Chalmers cars, operates a Goodyear service station, and has the sole agency in Anderson for the Goodyear tires and accessories.
In 1899 Mr. Williams married Kate F. Danforth, daughter of William and Emma (Welsh) Danforth of Edinburgh, Indiana. They have two children : Robert Lee, born in 1902, and Mary Emma, born in 1912. Mr. Williams is a republican and has helped his party and its leaders, though never an aspirant for office himself. He is affiliated with the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks at Anderson, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is a citizen who rightly deserves the respect and esteem which he enjoys among all classes of the good people of Madison County.
LUKE W. DUFFEY is known in a business way as founder and head of the Luke W. Duffey Farm Sales Company of Indian- apolis. This is a big business, scien- tifically and successfully conducted and which has brought Mr. Duffey into consid- erable prominence in real estate circles.
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However, he is probably most widely and generally known as an ardent enthusiast and able leader in the good roads movement in the state and in the nation. He is the author of the law creating the Indiana State Highway Commission.
Mr. Duffey's operations in real estate and particularly in the sale of farm lands were deemed of sufficient importance by the National Real Estate Journal to pub- lish a special article on Mr. Duffey under the head of "Men Who Succeed in Real Estate." This article especially described Mr. Duffey's promotion of farm sales in Indiana during the period of the Great War. He was one of the men who antici- pated the increased demand for farms and farm products as a result of the war.
Mr. Duffey is certainly a gifted specialist in the handling of farm sales. He has studied exhaustively every condition affect- ing a sale. To quote the words of the Na- tional Real Estate Journal: "He knows the ownership, acreage, selling history, and property lines of all farms for virtually forty miles out of his selling center. Mr. Duffey constantly carries an average of 1,000 farms listed in his selling ledger. They are listed according to their acreage, with accurate data of the location, condi- tions, nature of soil, market situations, so- cial accommodations, available utilities, and® all information necessary to make immedi- ate sales. He keeps a daily posted list of prospective buyers, their wants and their financial ability to purchase. Since Mr. Duffey is himself a man of legal training, he has incorporated within his office service a complete legal department, so that he is able to foresee and eliminate every possible delay and inconvenience affecting a land transfer."
Some other facts brought out in the same article should also be quoted. "Mr. Duffey is chairman of the Good Roads Com- mittee of the National Real Estate Associa- tion, and for the last few years has at- tended every national convention of the or- ganization. He was a pioneer in the estab- lishing of the Farm Loan Bank by the National Government and, as chairman of the Agricultural Committee of the National Real Estate Association, gathered data in Canada and the United States to be used in the location and formation of the banks. In his various official road capacities he has appeared before congressional committees
any many American road congresses in Washington, urging good road laws. He played a conspicuous part in securing the enactment of the $85,000,000 federal aid bill for establishing a system of national highways."
In 1914 Governor Ralston appointed Mr. Duffey secretary of the Non-Political High- way Commission. He has been chairman for several years of the Good Roads Com- mittee of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. His success in political life is almost wholly due to his efforts in behalf of good roads, a definite issue in which every Indiana citizen is interested. This work has earned him a national reputation as well as several official positions in na- tional road associations.
Mr. Duffey was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1917. At the expiration of that term he became a candi- date for state senator to which office he was elected on a "Good Roads and Good Gov- ernment" platform, leading his ticket by a large majority. In the Legislature, he was a vigilant student of all measures affecting farmers and stockmen. He was not known in the Legislature as a particularly fre- quent speaker, but rather as a very effective organizer and a man who accomplished things. He did much to bring about the defeat of the "Hog Cholera Trust." He opposed the bill which would have worked a hardship on farmers' mutual insurance companies, and numerous other measures which would have meant a serious drain upon the tax payers without a propor- tional benefit.
Mr. Duffey's complete and unrivalled knowledge of the roads of Indiana, as well as personal characteristics, doubtless brought him the appointment in 1918 of state representative of the War Depart- ment to handle matters of the Motor Trans- port Corps in ronting and caring for over- land war trucks after the highway laws had been set aside in Indiana.
He was appointed to membership on the Road Committee of the United States Chamber of Commerce to act on the com- mittee in the administration of $285,000,- 000 Federal Aid Highway money. He was the second time a co-author of the State Highway Commission Law, the 1919 session having rewritten his mission, which was enacted in 1917, classifying the road build- ing rights of the state.
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His formal biography and a few of the most interesting items of his family history are as follows :
Luke W. Duffey was born in Hendricks County, Indiana, October 24, 1879, son of Eli and Nancy J. (Benbow) Duffey. His grandfather, Michael Duffey, settled in Bellville, Hendricks County, in 1842. His great-grandfather was a pioneer who fought in the Revolutionary war under General Washington. The maternal grand- father of Luke W. Duffey was Elam Ben- bow, who came from North Carolina in 1828 and settled on an unclaimed tract of land in Clay Township of Hendricks County. A part of that old Benbow estate is now occupied by the Town of Amo. Mr. Duffey's father was a Union soldier in one of the Indiana regiments in the Civil war.
Mr. Duffey received his early education in the public schools of Hendricks County. Later he entered the Central Normal Col- lege at Danville, where he studied law. He was admitted to the Hendricks County bar August 4, 1900.
Mr. Duffey never engaged actively in the practice of law, but upon leaving college devoted his time almost exclusively to real estate and title law. For some years he lived in Plainfield, which place now bears material evidence of his energy and enter- prise. He was the founder of Amitydale Park and Hillside Park, Duffey's First and Second Additions to Plainfield, and he built considerably more than two miles of sidewalks.
In order that he might better handle his real estate business, which had assumed quite extensive proportions, Mr. Duffey moved to Indianapolis in March, 1910. Here he laid out the western wing of the city, including Lookout Gardens, first and second sections, Lookout Plaza, and Sterling Heights Addition.
Due largely to his early experiences, he has maintained an intense interest in farm and rural development. Indeed, he is a practical farmer himself. Through his company he specializes in high class farms, and his transactions are, for the most part, limited to large farms and property own- ers. Many of the most notable sales of farms, valued at from $100 to $300 an acre, have been transacted through his organiza- tion. His efforts have done much to encourage and advance agriculture, a work of real patriotism in these days.
Mr. Duffey is well known in the commer- cial life of Indianapolis. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, belongs to the Marion and Columbia clubs, and is a Mason and Knight of Pythias.
Mr. Duffey is quite justly proud of his three interesting, attractive daughters, Irene, Dessie D. and Wilma Lee. Irene is doing preparatory work in the Ward-Bel- mont School for girls at Nashville, Tennes- see, while the two younger daughters are receiving instructions in the public schools at Plainfield.
JOHN HANNA was born in Marion County, Indiana, September 3, 1827. After grad- uating from Asbury College he read law, and with the exception of a few years spent in Kansas before the Civil war he prac- ticed at Greencastle from 1850 until his death, which occurred on the 24th of Octo- ber, 1882. From 1861 until 1866 Mr. Hanna served as a United States district attorney, and he was elected from the Sev- enth District as a member of Congress, serving one term, 1877-1879.
GEORGE M. YOUNG, M. D. In a busy professional career of over thirty-five years Dr. George M. Young has been iden- tified with the City of Evansville almost continuously. For a number of years he was the chief surgeon for the railroad lines entering Evansville, but for the past fifteen years has given his time to a general prac- tice.
Doctor Young came to Evansville from the State of Pennsylvania, where he was born and reared and educated. His birth occurred on a farm in Indiana County, that state. His father, Levi Young, was a native of Berks County, Pennsylvania. He was an infant when his father died and when he was four years old his mother married again and moved to Indiana County. He grew up there on a farm and at the age of sixteen entered a general store in the town of Indiana, and by work as a clerk for five years acquired a thor- ough business training. He married then and returned to country life. He was strong and active, and though without cap- ital he had the energy and the ambition that enabled him to climb steadily the rounds of the ladder to success. For sev- eral years after his marriage he did the hardest kind of work in farming, chopping
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