USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Memorial record of distinguished men of Indianapolis and Indiana > Part 17
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Two years after assuming the position of secretary to the Eagle White Lead Works of Cincinnati Mr. Burdsal was virtually compelled to resign the same on ac- count of impaired health, and he sought relief in travel, in connection with which he visited Indianapolis, in response to the importunities of an old friend residing in this city, and who was at that time in affliction. It is deemed but consistent to inter- polate at this point somewhat liberal and slightly paraphrastic quotations from an appreciative article appearing in the Indianapolis News at the time of the death of Mr. Burdsal, as the estimate offered gives adequate data concerning his business career :
"While Mr. Burdsal was best known as a manufacturer of and dealer in paints, his personality was such that many who met him in business and other channels remembered him for his brusque and abrupt ways, and his liberal, yet conservative charities. His time was devoted almost exclusively to his business, but he gave money and attention to many public enterprises for the benefit of the city and its people. He was never affiliated with any church, but frequently attended the Taber- nacle Presbyterian and manifested a great deal of interest in its affairs.
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Alfred Burdsal
"The call of an army comrade, who appealed to him in a moment of trouble, brought him to Indianapolis on a mission of friendship and charity, and was respon- sible for his connection with the industrial growth of the city. Speaking of the matter one time, Mr. Burdsal said: 'I was astonished at the growth of the city, which I had not visited for five years. I had been in close touch with the drug trade of Indianapolis prior to my visit in the fall of 1874, but before that time I did not realize the opportunities of the city and had determined to settle in Chicago. I made up my mind quickly that this was the spot for a great city, and determined to start in business here at once, even though the country was in the midst of a great panic. I leased the building at 32 South Meridian street on the 1st of Janu- ary, 1875, and commenced grinding paint in a small way on the third floor of 34 the block. In 1879 I bought the old Ferguson port-house of the Citizens' National South Meridian street, getting power from Col. Eli Lilly, who was then occupying the Bank and built my factory at 423-7 South Pennsylvania street. After that I bought adjoining properties until I held two hundred and twenty-five feet frontage on Penn- sylvania street. I established my present business January 1, 1875, at 32 South Meridian street, and remained there one year, at the expiration of which I removed into the next door south. Ten years later I extended my store to include the next room. In 1900 we moved into quarters at Meridian and Maryland streets.
"He served as director of the Technical Institute and was deeply interested in its success. This was one of the few things outside of his business to which he gave his time. In the conduct of his manufacturing and wholesale business he was in- clined to devote a great deal of personal attention to details, and while he was always surrounded by loyal men, he never allowed any branch to go long without his personal supervision. His employes regarded him as 'one of them,' and it is said of him that in his factory he had a faculty of appearing on the same footing with them and impressing them with the idea that all were members of the firm.
"Mr. Burdsal met with few reverses in his business career. From a small industry, supplying a small trade, he developed his business as the field increased, and his careful, conservative projects were too well planned to go far astray. One misfortune which his company weathered was the destruction by fire of the retail business rooms in the spring of 1910. The damage was immediately repaired and the firm continued in the same location.
"In more recent years the business which Mr. Burdsal founded has been con- ducted under the name of A. Burdsal Company. It was so incorporated in order that the older members of the retail and manufacturing forces could become finan- cially interested in it. Among those who were associated with him was Granville G. Allen, whose death in January, 1911, was a severe blow to the veteran manufac- turer and indirectly hastened the end of his own life. Mr. Burdsal was in impaired health for several years prior to his death, and sought relief at Carlsbad, Germany. He received temporary benefit and was planning a return to the German springs when Mr. Allen died. He insisted on attending the funeral of his friend and partner, and in his weakened condition contracted pneumonia, which left him so weak that he was forced to abandon his contemplated trip to Europe. Thereafter he was confined to his home most of the time until his death.
"While Mr. Burdsal was known as a man deeply devoted to business, his most intimate friends saw another side of his life that made him even more respected. Over twenty years ago he married Miss Emma Bryan, of Indianapolis and his devo-
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Alfred Burdsal
tion to his wife was the secret of a home life which afforded him the greatest com- fort. He was always just and considerate in his dealings with those about him, and in his home at his death was an employe who entered his service when the couple went housekeeping, shortly after their marriage. His employes as well as his business associates profited by his prosperity, and in the sickness that preceded his death he had the sympathy and kindly ministrations of those who knew and appre- ciated him. Among those to whom he was devoted was Miss Laura Bryan, sister of his wife. Every day during his last sickness she assisted him in handling a great deal of correspondence, to which he gave his personal attention even when ill. and which was remarkable for its optimistic tone while its writer was fighting for his life.
"The death of Mr. Burdsal removes from the business life of Indianapolis a man who appreciated the city's possibilities, staked his future on its growth, and became a prominent figure in its prosperity and expansion."
Though he was invariably insistent in his demand that his benefactions should not be made a matter of public knowledge, Mr. Burdsal contributed liberally to many benevolent and charitable objects as well as to the support of other institutions whose influence conserved the general good of the community. Thus it may be noted that he contributed five thousand dollars to the building fund of the local Young Men's Christian Association and seven thousand to the fund of the Indianapolis Technical Institute. His private benevolences were known only to himself and the recipients, and were given with kindness and discrimination. Prior to his failing health he became actively identified with representative clubs in his home city, and he was a most appreciative member of the Masonic fraternity, in which he received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He was also a valued member of George H. Thomas Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and both this organi- zation and representative of the various Masonic bodies with which he was affiliated took part in his funeral services, his remains being taken to Cincinnati for interment beside those of his father and mother.
Alfred Burdsal was a man of energy and resourcefulness, sturdy in the recti- tude of character, sincere and outspoken and with naught of vacillation in pur- pose. One always knew where he stood and knew that he took a certain position because he believed it to be right. He knew men at their real value and had no toleration of deceit or meanness in any of the relations of life. He did not come so largely to the attention of the public eye as did many of his contemporaries who accomplished less and did less for the world, but he felt the responsibilities which success imposes and ever endeavored to live up to those responsibilities in the straightforward, undemonstrative way characteristic of the man. His name merits an enduring place on the roster of the honored and valued citizens who have contri- buted to the well being of the city of Indianapolis. Mr. Burdsal never sought political preferment or other partisan prominence, and while he was in the main an adherent to the principles of the Republican party, his vote was always cast for the better man, regardless of party sentiment or influences. He was all that is progressive and public spirited in citizenship. Especially interested in the work and affairs of the Masonic fraternity, he was virtually the founder of the fine Masonic library in his native city,-Cincinnati. The nucleus of this library was a fine lot of books which he secured from an old and cultured German citizen of Cincinnati, and by personal solicitation among his fraternal associates he obtained the money
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Alfred Burdsal
to pay for the books. At the time of his death resolutions of sympathy and respect were passed by the various lodges and clubs with which he had been identified, and the city realized the loss of one of its leading business men and sterling citizens. Mrs. Burdsal still resides in the beautiful home at 1015 North Meridian street, and is a leader in the social activities of the community, where she has passed the greater part of her life and where she has a wide circle of friends.
On the 8th of December, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Burdsal to Miss Emma Bryan, of Indianapolis, and their home life was ideal in its mutual affec- tion and sympathy. No children were born of their union. Mrs. Burdsal was born at Louisville, Kentucky, and is a daughter of Dr. Albert H. and Nancy (Murdock) Bryan.
6 70 Bruges
Charles TUI. Bridges
ELL known in his native state for his honesty of purpose, faith- W ful adherence to his convictions and energetic performance of his duty as conscience dictated, Charles Wesley Bridges was born of Methodist parents, as his name implies, on June 5, 1844. His father was Moses Thomas Bridges, a country mer- chant of English descent. His mother was before her marriage Mary Keith Vansant-a name variously spelled by the descend- ants of him who immigrated from Holland. Both parents were pioneers from Ken- tucky and Charles W. was the tenth of eleven children, all of whom were well known in their later lives as steadfast friends and honorable business men and lovable mothers.
He received his early education in the country school at Fillmore, Putnam county, Indiana, where he was born, later studying at an academy at Bainbridge, a nearby town, and finally entered Asbury College, now DePauw University, at Greencastle, the county seat of Putnam county. He was a student there when he heard the call of the Civil war when he was barely seventeen years of age. Being too young to carry a musket he was enlisted as a drummer boy in the One Hundred and Fortieth Indiana Volunteers, having received his inspiration and education in beating the drum from his older brother Thomas, who was a drummer boy in the earlier war with Mexico. His enlistment having expired, he re-enlisted and served until the end of the war.
In later years he signified his interest in his soldier comrades by retaining until he died his membership in the George H. Thomas Post, Grand Army of the Republic, in Indianapolis. In this connection it is interesting to note that because he joined the army he was deprived of his membership in the Methodist church in his native town, the main leaders in the church being members of the Golden Circle and opposed to the Union cause. On returning home he joined, therefore, the Christian Union church at Bainbridge and was a supporter of it when needed until he died, although he had removed his church letter to the Tabernacle Presby- terian church of Indianapolis about 1875.
After the close of the war Mr. Bridges entered the employ of Ludorf & Company, wholesale men's furnishers of Indianapolis, retaining the position of traveling salesman until this firm quit business eleven years later, when he secured a position with Landers & Company, pork packers. During this period he met and married ยท Lavina, the oldest daughter of Franklin Landers, who was the mother of his chil- dren; Mary Eliza, who died when sixteen years of age, Franklin Landers, Charles Winstead and William Lucian. His wife, Lavina Landers, died of pneumonia, April, 1883, and Mr. Bridges was married the second time, June 24, 1884, to Miss Florence Alice McHaffie, whom he had known in earlier years. She was the oldest child of Melville F. McHaffie, a prominent stock raiser of Putnam county, Indiana. There were no children by this marriage.
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Charles TO. Bridges
Mr. Bridges had previous to this time entered the wholesale dry goods house of Landers, Conduit & Company, which is now the Hibben, Hollweg & Company, and represented them as a traveling salesman. During this time he became a charter member of the Commercial Travelers' Association of Indiana, a fraternal life in- surance organization still engaged in business. He was also interested in the Indi- anapolis Commercial Club. He was a staunch Democrat in politics, being chairman of the Democratic City Committee which elected Thomas L. Sullivan mayor, and later he was chairman of the State Silver League in Indiana in William Jennings Bryan's first campaign in 1896.
Mr. Bridges had a large acquaintance in his own city, county and state and had no difficulty in securing a clientele in his real estate business organized about 1895, under the name of The C. W. Bridges Investment Company. He was very success- ful in this business and in promoting two or three manufacturing companies, one of which he organized and started just a few years prior to his death; viz: The American Computing Company for the manufacture of a then new method of sell- ing cheese by computing its weight in money value.
The last three years of his life were spent in seeking health but he was finally overcome April 21, 1906. Two of his brothers died within eight months of his own death. These three had been very closely associated all their lives. One of them, Moses Dillon, was vice-president of the Central National Bank of Green- castle, Indiana, and the other, James W. Bridges, had owned and managed the gen- eral store left by his father in Fillmore until his death. The store had been owned by this family for over fifty years, and was known for miles as a place where all were treated fairly and where many needy families had found relief.
The Greencastle Star, whose owner and editor had known these brothers for many years, thus commented on the death of Charles W. Bridges: "In his death the last of three brothers, natives of Putnam county, well known and highly re- spected for their personal worth, closed his earthly career, and the other two brothers, Moses D., and James W., passed away within the eight months preceding."
Mr. Bridges was always interested in the public welfare and was a substantial and progressive citizen and business man. His home life was that of a loyal and Christian character and his ambition was to leave a family of education and re- finement.
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Thomas C. Chandler
HE primary purpose of this publication is to give proper record concerning those men who have marked with large T achievement, in various lines of activity, distinct and honorable places in connection with civic, professional and business affairs in the capital city of Indiana. In determining upon those de- ceased citizens whose lives and labors entitle them emphatically to representation within these pages there is found emphatic and unequivocal consistency in according such tribute to the late Thomas Evans Chandler, who was long one of the prominent figures in the field of industrial enterprise in Indianapolis; who was a power in the local councils of the Republican party, in which connection he was at one time the nominee of his party for representative of the old Seventh district of Indiana in the United States Congress ; he was a citizen whose loyalty and progressiveness were shown in many helpful ways; and, above all, he was a man whose sterling attributes of character well entitle him to the high esteem in which he was held in the city that was his home for more than forty years prior to his death, which here occurred on the 10th of September, 1902, as the result of septicaemia, of the fatal nature of which he had become fully aware several months before the close of his strong and useful life.
Thomas Evans Chandler was most loyal to the commonwealth of his adoption but he ever manifested a due pride in reverting to the old Keystone state of the Union as the place of his nativity. He was born on a farm in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of September, 1831, and was a son of William G. and Sarah (Taylor) Chandler, who continued to reside in that state until their death, the father having been a patternmaker by trade but having devoted much of his active life to agricultural pursuits. It is worthy of note that the house in which the subject of this memoir was born was that in which the distinguished Thaddeus Stephens was ushered into the world. The common schools of his native state afforded Mr. Chandler his early educational advantages, and as a youth he left the farm and went to Safe Harbor, a town in his native county, where he served a thorough apprenticeship at the machinist's trade, in which he became a specially skillful artisan and in connection with which he developed his marked natural mechanical and inventive genius. In 1857 he went from Pennsylvania to Burling- ton, Iowa, to assume charge of a newly established steel-rolling mill, but conditions there did not satisfy him and he resigned his place and started for St. Louis. He deflected his course, however, and came to Indianapolis in October, 1858, at the request of his friend, George Merritt, who had previously established a home in this city. Mr. Chandler was a young man of much circumspection and foresight and was so favorably impressed with the capital city of Indiana that he decided to remain here,-a decision which he never had cause to regret. He accepted the position of superintendent of the Indianapolis rolling mills, but his ambition soon
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Thomas E. Chandler
led him to initiate an independent business enterprise, while still retaining the in- cumbency noted. He formed a partnership with Charles R. Wiggins and, under the title of Wiggins & Chandler, they established a machine shop. From this modest nuclens was eventually built up a large and prosperous industrial enter- prise, the present extensive Chandler & Taylor plants, in West Washington streets and in Rosedale, a suburb of the city, being the outcome of the well directed efforts of these two young men in the early days of their strenuous efforts to develop an industry of prosperous order. In noting other salient points in the career of Mr. Chandler it is deemed but consistent to quote from an appreciative estimate which appeared in the Indianapolis News at the time of his demise and which is worthy of perpetuation in this more enduring form:
Wiggins & Chandler opened a water-power plant and manufactured agricultural machinery. Mr. Chandler continued to serve as superintendent of the rolling mills, and after filling out his day at that work he would spend a great part of his night laying out work for his own foreman to do the next day. He would also operate part of the machinery at night. He bought out his partner's interest in 1864, and upon the admission of Franklin Taylor to partnership the present title was adopted, William M. Taylor, a son of the junior member of the firm of Chandler & Taylor, being now executive head of the enterprise. In 1888 the business was incorporated and the sons of the original members of the firm were taken into the business.
During his incumbency of the position of superintendent of the old Indianapolis rolling mills Mr. Chandler invented a process of rolling and re-rolling iron rails at one heating. He did not receive the financial benefits from this invention which, in a measure, revolutionized old processes and made several men wealthy.
Mr. Chandler was always a political power in the west part of the city, and especially in the old Fourth ward. During the '70s he was a member of the city council and was president of the hospital board. In 1888-the first Harrison campaign-he defeated Sid Conger for the Republican nomination for congress in the old Seventh district, which was then composed of Marion, Hancock and Shelby counties. Though he ran ahead of his ticket he was defeated by W. D. Bynum. As General Harrison was elected to the presidency of the United States, Mr. Chandler was in a position to wield a great deal of influence in patronage distribution, but he chose not to do this. Mr. Chandler retired from political ac- tivities in 1890 and from business life in 1897. Thereafter he devoted most of his time to the supervision of two fine farms which he owned and upon which he spent many pleasant hours, the one being situated in Marion county and the other in Hendricks county.
The love which Mr. Chandler had for his home, a center of affection and soli- darity of interests, was such that he there found his greatest happiness and solace, and only those who were thus near and dear to him in this ideal home could fully appreciate the great, loving tenderness which expressed itself in his words and actions as well as in the more esoteric sentiments. His was the second death in the immediate family circle, and his memory remains as a benediction to those who survive him and who remember him as the unselfish and devoted husband and father. Mr. Chandler was a birthright member of the Society of Friends and never faltered in his allegiance to its simple and noble faith, his wife also being a birthright member.
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Thomas E. Chandler
In Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 13th of October, 1852, was solem- nized the marriage of Mr. Chandler to Miss Lucetta B. Hogentogler, who was born in the state of New York, on the 30th of March, 1831, and whose parents, John and Mary Hogentogler, were natives of Pennsylvania, of staunch old German stock. Mrs. Chandler did not long survive her honored husband, as she was summoned to the life eternal on the 14th of April, 1905, at the age of seventy-four years. The remains of both rest in beautiful Crown Hill cemetery at Indianapolis. Their old home was on West Vermont street, where they resided for thirty-two years, but after the death of her husband Mrs. Chandler found it expedient to dispose of this property, as a site for the Indianapolis day nursery, and she then purchased the fine home at 1640 North Delaware street where she passed the residue of her life, secure in the affectionate regard of all who had come within the sphere of her gentle and gracious influence. Her solicitude for those in affliction and distress was shown in many unostentatious deeds of charity and in ministrations of tender sym- pathy, while she was active in the work of the religious organization to which both she and her husband belongs. All but one of the children survived the father, and concerning them the following brief record is given: Anna M., whose death occurred September 28, 1904, became the wife of Henry G. Werbe, of Indianapolis, who survives her, as do also two children-Helen (wife of Arthur M. Wellington) and Thomas C .; Miss Sarah Evans Chandler remains in the attractive homestead on North Delaware street and has a wide circle of friends in the city that has been her home from the time of her birth; Elizabeth M. is the wife of Martin T. Ohr, of Indianapolis, and they have one child, Lucetta; Josephine is the wife of Albert G. Owens, and they reside in the city of Columbus, Ohio; Caroline B. became the wife of Lewis M. Cooper, of Indianapolis, and died in this city on the 2d of April, 1902; and George M., who is engaged in the machinery business in Indianapolis, wedded Miss Kate Cooper, of this city, and they have one child,-William.
Aysmith
Alonzo G. Smith
N STUDYING a clean-cut and distinct character like that of the late Alonzo Greene Smith, former attorney general of the I state of Indiana, interpretation follows fact in a straight line of derivation and there is small need for indirection or puzzling. His character was the positive expression of a rugged and reso- lute nature and his strength was as the number of his days. His career was marked by splendid achievement and was guided and governed by the highest personal integrity and honor. Sincere, courageous and broad-minded, he was ever able to give a reason for the faith that was in him and to defend his honest convictions. Compromise for the sake of personal expe- diency was an impossibility with Mr. Smith and none could ever ascribe to him vacil- lation or uncertainty of purpose. He made much of his life and held positions of high public trust. He lived up to the full measure of the responsibilities and duties thus assigned to him and he left a definite and benignant impress upon the political and civic annals of Indiana. Great of heart and mind, genial, generous and buoyant, he held to himself the most loyal of friendships, while his political adversaries could but admire his ability and sterling honesty. He attained pres- tige as one of the representative members of the bar of his state and was engaged in the practice of his profession in its capital city for several years prior to his death, which here occurred on the 5th of August, 1907. The man himself and the honors which he worthily won render most consonant the memorial tribute accorded to him in this publication.
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