USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume II > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
(42)
658
PAST AND PRESENT
methods the O. W. Peirce Company was organized and incorporated July 30, 1904, with a capital stock of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The officers of the company at the present time are as follows: O. W. Peirce, Sr., president ; O. W. Peirce, Jr., secretary, and E. R. Fielding, secretary.
The success which has attended the efforts of Mr. Peirce during an active business career in Lafayette of more than sixty years has been brought about by close attention to business, a thorough knowledge of details in both buying and selling and the possession of those faculties of rare foresight, dis- crimination and conservatism. While the personnel of the firm has changed a number of times, and from 1853 to 1856 it was known as Reynolds, Hatcher & Peirce, the latter has always been the directing head and active manager of the concern. Since the dissolution of the above named firm in 1856 the business has been carried on under the name of O. W. Peirce & Company until the recent incorporation of O. W. Peirce Company. The only partner of our subject at the present time is his son, O. W. Peirce. Jr. The latter is a man of excellent business qualifications, and having grown up in the busi- ness he has mastered all the details which have made for success in the past and having assumed the active management of the concern his future as well as the successful continuance of the business is assured.
When in a reminiscent mood Mr. Peirce talks entertainingly of old times in Lafayette, of which he has many instructive stories. He recalls with pleasure his first trading trip to New Orleans in 1849, when he was an inexperienced boy. Though ordinarily it could be made in ten days, this trip consumed six weeks, owing to ice in the river which greatly interfered with navigation. He made from one to three trips each year until the Civil war came on and in all made fifty-two of these trading trips to New Orleans. On more than one occasion he walked the greater portion of the distance. In 1852 Mr. Peirce furnished the capital and Mr. Cherry the experience to start a soap factory. It began in a small way in a frame building and made soap, candles and lard oil. This was the forerunner of the present M. & J. Schnaible factory, now located on the same site, which ships soap far and wide. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, Mr. Peirce was in Baltimore and the Maryland merchants were so frightened that he was enabled to purchase quantities of merchandise at from a fifth to a fourth of the ordinary price. During President Grant's administration Mr. Peirce's store was Republican headquarters for a large scope of territory, but at the same time it was generally understood that the discussion of such absorbing topics should not interfere with business, for Mr. Peirce had stated frankly and plainly that he was selling groceries, not politics.
659
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
As a business man Mr. Peirce has occupied a conspicuous place among the successful merchants of Lafayette for many years, in fact he is one of the oldest in point of continuous service in that city. Although he has passed the eightieth milestone in life's journey, he is still hale and hearty and active to a degree seldom attained by many men twenty or twenty-five years his junior. In his political relations Mr. Peirce has always affiliated with the Republican party since its organization, and while he has exhibited an abiding interest in the success of its candidates he has never aspired to political preferment. For more than forty years he has been a member of the First Baptist church of Lafayette. During that period he has served in various official capacities, was a member of the building committee at the time the present church edifice was constructed and in many ways has contributed to the advancement and welfare of the organization.
WILLIAM ROBINSON MOFFITT, M. D.
Distinguished as a physician and surgeon and holding worthy prestige as a citizen, Dr. William R. Moffitt fills a large place in professional circles, and for a number of years has been active in promoting the material advance- ment of the city in which he resides and the social and moral progress of its populace. He is a native and lifelong resident of Tippecanoe county and the second of a family of seven children, whose parents, Benjamin Rush and Clarissa Jane (Robinson) Moffitt, were also born in Indiana, the former in Connersville, the latter on the old farm six miles west of Lafayette, which was purchased from the government in pioneer times by William Robinson, the Doctor's grandfather, and which in memory of him is still known as the Robinson place. William Robinson and wife Matilda were among the first permanent settlers of the locality indicated and the family has been actively identified with that and other parts of the county from pioneer days to the present time. Benjamin Rush Moffitt, who also came to Tippecanoe county in an early day, was a prosperous farmer, a public-spirited citizen and a veteran of the Civil war, enlisting at the beginning of the struggle in the medical department of the Tenth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which he served about one and a half years, when he was discharged on account of disability. He married Miss Robinson in Tippecanoe county, reared a family of seven children, and departed this life, at the age of sixty- five years, on his farm in Jasper county, Indiana. Their children are all
660
PAST AND PRESENT
living and highly esteemed in their respective places of residence, being well situated as regards material means and popular among those with whom they associate. Othniel, the oldest of the family, lives at Valparaiso, this state, and deals quite extensively in produce; Olive M., the second in order of birth, married William Jordan, an ex-soldier who died in 1906, since which time she has made her home in Dephi. Dr. William R., of this review, is the third in succession, after whom comes Mrs. Isabel Barcley, a widow who resides in the city of Valparaiso; Reuben R. and Richard are twins, the former en- gaged in agricultural pursuits in northern Indiana, the latter living in La- fayette; Mrs. Jennie Blake, the youngest of the family, lives in the northern part of the state, where her husband is engaged in farming.
The subject's paternal grandfather, Dr. Joseph Moffitt, was a graduate of Yale College and a physician of distinguished ability in his day. He served as surgeon in the American army during the war of 1812, and was on Perry's fleet in the battle of Lake Erie. Later he settled at Connersville, Indiana, where he rose to a conspicuous position in his profession and became widely and favorably known as an enterprising man of affairs. He died at that place in the prime of his life and usefulness and left to his posterity a name to which the passing years have added luster and renown. Dr. Joseph Moffitt was a brother-in-law of Dr. O. L. Clark, one of the pioneer physicians of Lafayette and a man of wide influence in the affairs of Tippecanoe county in early times.
Dr. William R. Moffitt, a brief review of whose career appears in the following lines, was born December 8, 1849, on the family homestead about seven miles west of Lafayette, in Wabash township, and spent his early years amid the attractive scenes and wholesome influences of rural life. He was reared to habits of industry and, like the majority of country lads, learned by practical experience the meaning of honest toil, working in the fields during the spring and summer seasons and in the fall and winter months attending the district schools in the vicinity of his home. In this way he spent his time until twenty-one years of age, when he entered the Methodist College at Ft. Wayne, of which his uncle, the Rev. R. D. Robinson, was then presi- dent, and devoted the five years ensuing to close and critical study, making rapid progress the meanwhile and taking high rank as a student. During his last year in the above institution he read medicine in connection with his other studies, his instructor being Dr. W. H. Myers, one of the leading physicians of the city, under whose direction he was in due time enabled to enter Ft. Wayne Medical College, where he took his first course of lectures. Later, he prosecuted his studies at the Medical College of Indiana at Indian-
661
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
apolis, where he was graduated in the year 1877, immediately after which he returned to Tippecanoe county, where he opened an office in West La- fayette, and has since practiced with eminent success, being at this time one of the best known physicians and surgeons of the city and county.
Doctor Moffitt's large and steadily growing practice has been as suc- cessful financially as professionally, and from time to time he has contributed to the material part of Lafayette, in the way of buildings, including the large two-story brick structure in which he has his office, the building being erected especially for office purposes and being especially adapted and conceded to be unequaled in this respect by any other in the city. He has also ac- cumulated other valuable real estate both in the city and country, his resi- dence properties in Lafayette alone being conservatively estimated at $40,000, which, with various other holdings, represent a fortune of consider- adle magnitude and make him one of the solid and well-to-do men of the community.
Doctor Moffitt engaged in his life work well fitted for its many onerous duties and responsibilities and has availed himself of every opportunity to keep in touch with the trend of professional thought and abreast of the times in the latest discoveries in medical science. He has never ceased being a student, and when not engaged in active professional duties spends his time in his library in communion with the greatest thinkers of the ages.
He is a member of the Indiana State Medical Association, the District Medical Association, and the Medical Society of Tippecanoe County, in the deliberations of which bodies he keeps himself well informed, and often con- tributes to the papers, which elicit praise for his professional scholarship and thought.
Actuated by a desire to fit himself for the greatest possible efficiency, the Doctor some years ago entered the Polyclinic Hospital School of Medicine in Chicago, from which he received a diploma in 1897, and in 1900 he was graduated from the Post-Graduate School of Medicine of New York city, thus leaving nothing undone in the way of making himself a true healer of suffer- ing humanity. He has been one of the medical staff of physicians at St. Elizabeth's Hospital for over twenty-five years and served one term as county coroner, though never an office seeker and having little taste for public life.
On September 14, 1882, Doctor Moffitt was united in the bonds of wed- lock with Alice S. Robinson, who, though of the same name as his mother's before her marriage, is in no wise related to the latter. Mrs. Moffitt's father, Horney Robinson, was a pioneer of Allen county, Indiana, locating near Ft. Wayne about the year 1829, and taking an active interest in the development
662
PAST AND PRESENT
and growth of the part of the country in which he settled. Mrs. Moffitt was reared and educated in Allen county and Ft. Wayne, and is a woman of ex- cellent character and always manifests an abiding interest in the welfare of those with whom she mingles and moves in the best society circles of West La- fayette. Doctor and Mrs. Moffitt have one child, Bertha J., whose birth oc- curred on November 8, 1883, and who received a liberal education, graduating in due time from the West Side high school and from Purdue University with the class of 1906. In his political affiliations the Doctor has been a lifelong Republican, and since attaining his majority an influential and leading member of the party. For a number of years he has been an active worker for the success of his party and candidates, attending the various nominating conventions, local, district and state, in all of which his opinions command re- spect and his judgment weight.
GEORGE LAWSON BRUCE.
George L. Bruce, dealer in musical instruments and one of the most accomplished musicians of Lafayette, is a native of Indiana, born in Jasper county on the 21st day of June, 1852. Lawson Bruce, his father, was a New Englander and a descendant of an old Vermont family, and his mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Pyke, came from Pennsylvania. The Pyke family moved to Indiana in an early day and were among the pioneers of Tippecanoe county, in various parts of which descendants still reside. The Bruces were also early comers to this part of the state and the above parents grew to maturity and were married in Lafayette and lived here a number of years, subsequently removing to Rensselaer, Jasper county, where Mr. Bruce spent the remainder of his days. His widow survived him some years and departed this life in the month of February, 1904. The family of this couple consisted of three children, of whom the subject is the only son and the third in order of birth.
George Lawson Bruce was brought to Lafayette when a child, from which time to the present his life has been closely identified with the city. The public schools which he attended during his childhood and youth afforded him the means of obtaining a practical education, and while still young he accepted a clerkship in a music store, where he remained until acquiring a knowledge of the business and becoming quite skilled in the use of several kinds of instru- ments. In 1875 he severed his connection with his employer to become man-
663
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
ager of another firm of the same kind and after serving six years in that capacity he purchased the stock and established the business which he has since conducted and which under his capable management has grown into the largest and best known music house in the city.
Mr. Bruce has been at his present location since 1875 and sole proprietor of the establishment since 1890. As indicated above, his career presents a series of continued successes such as few achieve and the high position to which he has attained in the business world is due entirely to his own efforts, as he began life for himself in the modest capacity of a clerk and on becoming pro- prietor had much with which to contend ere finding his feet on solid financial ground. Early in his experience Mr. Bruce determined to master the under- lying principles of business and, having decided upon the line most suited to his tastes and inclinations, he spared no reasonable effort in acquiring a knowl- edge of music and the ability to reduce the same to practice. While still a youth he manifested a decided aptitude for music and after entering the store it was not long until he became an efficient performer on the various kinds of instruments in stock. Later he prosecuted his musical studies under in- structors of recognized ability and, applying himself closely, he became in due time one of the most skillful musicians in Lafayette as well as one of the most successful dealers in the same. He carries full lines of all kinds of instru- ments and musical merchandise, which he buys direct, owning the large stock which he always has on hand. His business has grown to such large pro- portions that he now employs in addition to several clerks in the house three salesmen who represent his goods on the road and who during the past few years have built up and greatly extended his trade. His establishment has a large and lucrative local patronage also, while the demand for his goods by the general trade in many other cities and towns throughout Indiana and neighboring states taxes the capacity of his house to supply, besides giving a wide and enviable reputation in musical as well as business circles.
While a skillful performer on several kinds of instruments, Mr. Bruce is especially efficient as a pianist and organist. For thirty-five consecutive years he presided at the organ in Trinity Methodist Episcopal church and could have retained the position indefinitely had he so desired, but recently, much against the wishes of the congregation and greatly to their disappoint- ment, he declined to remain longer, deeming almost a lifetime of service in furnishing music for public worship sufficient to entitle him to the rest which he so ably and conscientiously earned.
Mr. Bruce and family are Methodists and regular attendants of Trinity church, with which they are identifled and which the subject served so long
664
PAST AND PRESENT
and faithfully as organist. He is a member of the official board of said church, and at different times has held various other official positions in the organization, besides being a liberal contributor to its support and a donor to all worthy enterprises and humanitarian measures. Politically he votes the Republican ticket, but has never held an elective office, having little taste for public life and less for the chicanery and trickery which are sometimes neces- sary in order to attain positions at the hands of one's fellow citizens. Mr. Bruce is an enthusiastic friend of fraternal work and belongs to several orders based on the principle of secrecy. He is a Mason of high degree, holding membership with Lafayette Lodge, No. 123, Chapter No. 3, Royal Arch Masons, Commandery No. 3, Knights Templar, and Hope Chapter No. 5, Order of Eastern Star. He is also identified with Lodge No. 55, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Lodge No. 143, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, in both of which as well as in the Masonic brotherhood he has been chosen to positions of honor and trust.
BRAINARD HOOKER.
Brainard Hooker was born at Nugent Hollow, in Vanderburg county, about eight miles from Evansville, Indiana, September 18, 1868. Henry H. Hooker, his father, is a physician who has won a high reputation as an ob- stetrician. He took the degree of Doctor of Medicine from Rush Medical College in the early sixties. He earlier taught in the primitive district schools. He is the son of one Thomas Hooker, who came to Evansville at an early day from South Carolina and who is a descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, Connecticut. With but one known exception, all the Hookers of America and England are related. Gen. Joseph Hooker, of the Civil war, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the English botanist, and Richard Hooker, the theologian, are members of the family. One family at least of German origin now uses the name of Hooker in America, the German name having been Hoockards. Perhaps the economy in using the shorter name is the reason for the change of spelling. A study of the origin of names would lead one to conclude that as Fisher named the man for his occupation, so the Hookers in early times in England were the lovers of the rod and line.
The subject's mother was Mary H. (Headen) Hooker, daughter of Thomas Headen and Mary Nugent, who brought her and two other daughters and two sons from Ireland. The family settled on the Ohio river at the vil-
BRAINARD HOOKER
665
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
lage of Evansville, which was then composed of a few log huts. The father was a grocer for a time, then he bought Nugent Hollow, still owned by the Rev. H. S. Headen, of New Albany, the youngest child of the family. Mary was a babe a few weeks old when the trip was made across the Atlantic in a small sail boat. Her schooling was received in the district school, and part of a year was spent in Madison University, where Anna, her older sister, had been graduated. The Civil war called her brothers, Thomas and Robert, to the field of battle, and as her father had died some years before, she was, with the other girls of the family, called upon to work on the farm in the summer and teach in the winter to support the family. She was mar- ried to Henry Hamilton Hooker in 1867, and she died of a complication of diseases in August, 1899.
There were eight children in the family of Henry and Mary Hooker, and the parents fancied the use of but one name for each of their children. Brainard, the eldest, was named for one of the Doctor's college professors. Sherry, the second child, for the Sherrys, relatives of the Headens. Maggie, for her aunt Maggie Headen Hooker, wife of Prof. R. P. Hooker, of Evans- ville. Mabel, a name euphonious. Kitty, for her aunt Kate Headen Stafford. DeKress, for a widely known German physician and scientist, Oscar DeKress, Doctor of Medicine, of Evansville. Ross, for the former editor of the To- ledo Blade. The baby of the family was named for her Aunt Anna. It will be observed that the boys were given family names for Christian names. Of these children, five survive in 1909.
The subject of this sketch began his schooling in a little frame school house in the village of Elberfeld, a Dutch village in Warrick county, seven- teen miles from Evansville on the old Straight Line road. He attended school under the instruction of Lewis Kemper, Mary Wagoner and D. S. Johnson. It was while in school here that Mr. Hooker conceived the idea that he wished to be a teacher. He attended every teacher's institute that was held in the village school. They furnished him renewed inspiration. When he was fourteen years old, the father bought and moved to a farm near Oakdam, in Vanderburg county. Here, owing to an accident, Brainard lost one year's schooling. The father had a limb broken and the oldest boys had to care for the stock. He attended the Oakdam school for one year under the in- struction of D. S. Johnson. The following year he graduated in the eighth grade at McCutchanville, and entered the high school at the same place in the fall, completing the course offered in two years. Here he was under the tuition of a highly cultured and educated aunt.
666
PAST AND PRESENT
In February, 1886, Mr. Hooker made his trial license under Ernest D. McAvoy, the county superintendent, and in April he secured a twelve-months license.
J. C. Calvert, the trustee of Armstrong township, employed Mr. Hooker to teach No. 7 school, in the southwest corner of his township. Here the chief task was to teach German-speaking children to speak English. The task was complicated, for Mr. Hooker had learned Plattdeutsch at Elberfeld, and these children spoke Hochdeutsch. He must learn the High German to be better able to teach English. He boarded with one Nicholas Wolf, who took a delight in helping the young pedagogue to the use of German. The year's work was satisfactory to the officials and the young teacher was promised a larger, better school and one nearer his home. With these reflec- tions, he began his professional training in De Pauw University. With one term's preparation under the guidance of W. H. Mace and Arnold Tompkins, the year following was more successful. The years 1887 and 1888 were spent at Armstrong Station school. The fourth year's work was done at Theil school, still nearer home. The young teacher had now done four terms' work in the normal department at DePauw University and had had four years' experience in the district schools of his native county. In the fall of 1890 he followed Arnold Tompkins to the Indiana State Normal School (the normal department at DePauw having been closed by order of the trustees), and from this school he was graduated in June, 1893.
On the 17th day of August, 1893, Mr. Hooker was married to Eva A. McCutchan at her father's home near Oakdam. Miss McCutchan was the daughter of John T. and Nancy M. (Covey) McCutchan. Mr. McCutchan is the son of a large landholder, Thomas McCutchan, who came to America from Ireland in the early days of Indiana's history. Mrs. McCutchan is of French descent, through the Le Count family on her mother's side of the house. Eva Hooker was graduated from the common schools in her native county, Vanderburg, and was for a time a student at Princeton College. She taught school three years. Mrs. Hooker is a vocalist of no mean attainments.
Soon after the wedding the bride and groom went to Mt. Vernon, Indi- ana, to live, where Mr. Hooker had been employed in the high school as one of the instructors. Here he taught for two years, associated with E. G. Bauman, the present superintendent of the Mt. Vernon schools, and Edwin S. Monroe, the superintendent of the Muskogee schools, Oklahoma. While living here their daughter Maurine came into the family.
During the next three years the family lived at Rochester, Indiana, where Mr. Hooker was principal of the high school and head of the depart-
667
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, IND.
ment of English. Here Helen, the second girl, was born and Harold Mace, the first boy. The next move was to Indiana University, where Mr. Hooker felt the need of additional college work. After completing two terms' work, he and his wife and daughter Helen were taken down with typhoid fever, which exhausted the strength and exchequer of the family so completely that the pursuit of the long-hoped-for degree was abandoned.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.