USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Pictorial and biographical memoirs of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, together with biographies of many prominent men of other portions of the state, both living and dead > Part 20
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GEORGE R. COLTER. Among the successful and thorough-going business men of Indi- anapolis stands the name of George R. Colter who is a self-made man in every sense of the
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term. Thrown on his own resources at an early age he began an independent career with no capital save a goodly supply of pluck, energy and muscle, and has met with a reasonable amount of good luck in all his enterprises. He is at present councilman of the tenth ward, having been elected to that position in November, 1891, and discharges the duties incum- bent upon this position in a manner reflecting credit upon himself and upon his constituents. He is said to have been the first white child born on the site of North Vernon, Jennings County, Ind., his birth occurring on August 31, 1853, and he remained at his birthplace until 1862 when he went to Franklin, Ind. In 1864 he made his appearance in Indianapolis and dur- ing the remainder of the war was a newsboy in that city. In 1867 he learned cigar making, became very proficient in this, and continued in the business until 1881 when the strike occurred. He was chairman of the striking board. Following this he engaged in the liquor business and this he has continued up to the present time. He has one of the leading houses in the city and this standing has been acquired only by close attention to every detail of the business, and especially to the selection and assortment so as to keep it all times up to the highest standard of excellence. Mr. Colter is a self- educated man, all his schooling having been received during the night sessions, and every dollar he possesses has been made by hard work. He owns a fine building at his place of business and a good home. He was the third in order of birth of eight children, three of whom are living. In his political views he is a Democrat, the only one of his name advocating the views of that party. Socially he is a member of the Red Men, uniform rank, and also K. of P., uniform rank. He is a member of the Elks order, Cigar Maker's Union and Cleveland and Hendrick's club. He was mar- ried in 1880 to Miss Mary Drinket and the fruits of this union have been one child, Archie.
HON. CHARLES KAHLO. This free country of America affords numberless instances of men who have made their way alone in life, having nothing upon which to depend but their own strong arms and a determination to do and to succeed. Such men are always self- reliant, their necessities having taught them that what is done must be done through them- selves alone. They are worthy and well qualified to perform what duties they are called upon to discharge and are almost without exception leaders of thought in their communi- ties and lead lives of great usefulness. In considering the gentlemen of this class in Indianapolis, the name of Hon. Charles Kahlo suggests itself forcibly, for the reason that he has attained his distinguished position without the backing of family or friends, but has made his way onward and upward in the world by the force of his own talents. Charles Kahlo was born of worthy parents at Magdeburg, Prussia, July 4, 1840, being the son of Henry and Dorathy Kahlo. The father of our subject was active in politics in his native country and left there after the great disturbance of 1849, and settled at Defiance, Ohio, where he embarked in the mercantile business, having a large establishment and was doing a most prosperous business, when, in 1853, death came and took him from his family. Thus at the early age of thirteen, our subject was left fatherless and was thrown upon his own resources. That pluck which has always been so strong a characteristic of the man and to which he is so greatly indebted for his marked success in life, was present in him then, and he engaged with a dry goods merchant to work for his board and clothes, finding such opportunities as he could for getting an education. He remained with his employer, working earnestly and applying himself to do his full duty, and from time to time he was promoted from one station to another, his salary being increased with each promotion and being equal to that paid to em- ployes of much more advanced years. When the war broke out he was strongly moved by love for the country of his adoption, and felt it to be his imperative duty to go to the front and help to defend the imperilled nation. He did go and just as he did his full duty in the store of his employer, so he was every inch a soldier and made a noble record for himself in the army, proving himself a true and courageous soldier and a loyal and patriotic citizen. In April, 1861, at the first call for troops he enlisted in the three month's service in the Fourteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was elected second lieutenant. In September following he again enlisted, this time for three years, in Company G, Thirty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and did not lay down his sword until the war was over and he was honorably dis- charged, witli a record as good as that of any man who enlisted, because he did his full duty, never shirked a responsibility or failed to come up to what was expected of him. He held a commission throughout the entire period, and during the latter part of the war was
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on the staff of Gen. Miller. During his service he was with both the western and eastern armies. Returning home he lost no time, but went to work at once, going into the manufact- ure of wagon and carriage wood stock, at Defiance, Ohio, and was president of this com- pany for a period of fourteen years. In the year 1870 he removed to Logansport, Ind., and there engaged in the manufacture of wagon material, employing from 120 to 150 men. Busy as had been his life as a manufacturer, and he never under any circumstances neg- lected any duty connected with it, still he has always manifested a lively interest in politics, believing it to be the duty of every citizen to take part in the affairs of government, this being a government of the people. His sympathies and affiliations were always with the Republican party and the entire weight of his influence, and this has always been consider- able, has been cast in favor of that party. In June, 1878, his party recognizing his popu- larity and deeming it an honor due him, and an office that he would fill with distinguished ability, nominated him unanimously for the State Senate, from the district composed of Cass and Carroll Counties, which was Democratic, with a majority ranging from 600 to 800. He made a vigorous and skillful campaign and was elected by a majority of 230, he being the first and only Republican who was ever elected to the State Senate from that Democratic stronghold. He served a term of four years, and as his friends predicted, he made a faith- ful and most useful member of the higher house of the Legislature, bringing into his work the experience, the judgment and the strong business sense that pertain to him. Mr. Kahlo served as a member of the State central committee in 1880 and was a delegate to the Republican national convention in Chicago in 1880 which nominated James A. Garfield for President. After Garfield was inaugurated his friends were anxious that the dis- tingaished services of Mr. Kahlo should be recognized, and he was immediately appointed by Garfield as consul general to Berlin, but be accepted the mission to Australia instead. This position Mr. Kablo filled with ability during that administration and subsequently engaged in mining on an extensive scale in that country, and was the means of opening up the great mines of that region, which are now operated upon a most extensive scale, and Mr. Kablo had the first smelting furnace that was in operation in Australia. He introduced the American process there with quite a staff of mining experts from this country, some of whom Mr. Kahlo imported direct from the United States, for the carrying out of his enterprise successfully. This business be conducted most profitably for three years and could, at the expiration of that time, have left Australia with a handsome fortune, but he was persuaded to develop more mines, which necessitated the making of further large investments in some enterprises which proved very unfruitful, so that his accumulations were swept away quickly. Even then he could have gotten out with a handsome sum of money, but being a man of honor he stood by his friends, although he knew the outcome- remained as the captain of a ship by his sinking vessel-and he went down with all lost but his honor, and the confidence the respect and the esteem of those friends, which after all is more than money. This calamity completely discouraged him and he returned to the United States, locating at Indianapolis, mainly with the object of giving his sons a profes- sional education, which he has accomplished, Dr. George Kablo being a graduate of Bellevue, and afterward had charge of Holland hospital with honors. Dr. Harry Kahlo graduated as a dentist in New York city, and also graduated from the Indianapolis Medical College. Both sons are now practicing in this city under most encouraging auspices, are worthy sons of a worthy sire and reflect credit upon their rearing. Mr. Kahlo organized the Indi- ana Mutual Building & Loan Association in 1890 and it has grown into the largest organiza- tion of its kind in the State, thanks to the excellent management, the energy and the execn- tive ability of Mr. Kahlo, who is its general manager and secretary. It now has loaned out upward of $800,000 to its shareholders and the security is more than double the amount loaned. In the management of this important institution Mr. Kahlo displays a signal knowledge of financial matters, as well as an energy that has surprised his friends, even, who supposed they understood the measure of his strength. Its success is truly wonderful and is a proud monument to the labors and efforts of Mr. Kahlo. Mr. Kahlo is a very popular man and was always able to retain his friends even in the midst of a heated cam- paign, when they were on the opposite side. This is because he always fought fair, was good natured and always ready to oblige. He was honored by Gov. Chase by being
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made a member of his staff, and was honored in the same manner by Gov. Matthews, who renamed him for the position, Mr. Kahlo being the only Republican on the staff. He also serves with the same rank, that of colonel, on the staff of Gen. Carnahan, in the Uniform Rank, K. of P. Our subject was married in 1864 to Miss Cornelia Colby, whose father was a very prominent physician of Ohio, and whose family is an old and honored one. She has borne him six children, three of whom are living. The members of the family are united with the Tabernacle church. Besides the various organizations named with which Mr. Kahlo is connected he is also a member of the L. L. and of the Columbia Club, and, whatever his connection, he is held in highest esteem in those bodies and is use- ful and influential in them.
HON. ISAAC P. GRAY, prominent in State and national politics, was born October 18, 1828, in Chester County, Penn., and is a son of John and Hannah (Worthington) Gray. His ancestors were members of the Society of Friends, or more commonly known as Quakers, his great-grandfather coming with William Penn from England. Receiving but a common- school education in youth, he embarked in mercantile pursuits at New Madison, Ohio, re- moved to Union City, Ind., in 1855, where he continued merchandising, but later began the practice of law, having previously qualified himself for that profession. During the war of secession, he commanded the Fourth Indiana Cavalry for a time, but ill health necessitated his withdrawal from an active military career, and returning home he helped recruit the One Hundred and Forty-seventh Indiana Infantry. Until the organization of the Republican party Col. Gray was a Whig. As a Republican he was defeated for Congress in 1866, but two years later was elected to the State Senate, where he served four years. In 1870 he was appointed minister to the Island of St. Thomas, West Indies, but declined the honor. In 1871 his political views underwent a change, and since that time he has been an active Demo- crat. He was nominated by acclamation and elected lieutenant governor in 1876, and upon the death of James D. Williams, became governor of the State. As the candidate of the Democratic party in 1884, he was nominated for governor of the State by acclamation on the first ballot, and upon election gave it an excellent administration. For the past two presidential terms he has been prominently mentioned as a candidate for either the first or second place on the Democratic presidential ticket, but the uncertain game of politics has decided in each instance in favor of others. By appointment of Pres. Cleveland, in 1893, he became ininister to Mexico. Gov. Gray is a man of unquestioned ability and of unbounded ambition. He married Miss Eliza Jaqua in 1850, and to this union there are two living children.
DR. ROBERT NATHANIEL TODD (deceased), son of Levi L. Todd, was born Janu- uary 4, 1827, near Lexington, Ky., which place had been the home of his father's family for two generations. Robert was the seventh born in a family of nine children, two of whom died in infancy; the remainder having reached maturity, though only two survive bim. His family removed to Indiana in 1834 and from that time until the time of his death, which occurred June 13, 1883, he made his home in this vicinity. His early advantages were indifferent, a common-school education, such as the country at that time afforded, with such a knowledge of Latin as he himself could pick up, was all. He made rapid progress in his studies at school, showing more than ordinary aptness for figures, and although physically delicate, he gained in health and strength as he grew older. During his youth he performed a great deal of hard labor upon the farm, but when nineteen years of age he began the study of law at South Bend with Judge Liston, his brother-in-law. At the expiration of a year and a half he returned to the farm and there remained until broken down by hard labor and ill health, he was compelled, at the end of two years, to abandon farm work entirely. After having remained at home a number of months an invalid, and after having almost despaired of regaining his health, he visited Dr. David Todd, of Dan- ville, by whom he was induced, after some hesitation, to commence the study of medicine, which he did more as a diversion from low spirits, not expecting ever to be well enough to turn it to practical account. His health, however, soon began to improve, and the next year he attended lectures at the old "Indiana Central Medical College," which was organ- ized about that time under the rule of Drs. Bobb, Mears, Deming, Dunlap, and others (the first of Indianapolis' medical colleges). In the next year, 1851, he graduated and the
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following spring settled at Southport, where he remained until the breaking out of the Rebellion. Previous to this, in the spring of 1854, he was married to Miss Margaret White, of that neighborhood. Shortly after the breaking out of the war he was appointed surgeon of the Twenty-sixth Indiana Volunteers and went soon after with his regiment to Missouri, where he remained on duty in camp and hospital for about twenty months, when he was called home by the illness of his wife, whom he found rapidly sinking with consumption. She died in a short time, leaving him a family of five children, the two youngest being but. a few months old. Having resigned his position upon his return home, he soon after removed to the city and again entered the Government service as surgeon at Camp Morton, where, associated with Dr. Kipp, of the regular army, and under the medical directorship of Dr. Bobbs, he continued until the close of the war. In the year following his removal to Indianapolis he was married to Mrs. Martha J. Edgar, who, with three children of his first and four of his second marriage, now survive him. In the year 1869 the organiza- tion of the Indiana Medical College was effected, in which he was chosen as teacher of theory and practice. There he remained until the spring of 1874, when he resigned his chair and shortly afterward, upon the organization of the College of Physicians and Sur- geons (himself having been the originator), he was assigned the same department, holding it until the union of the two medical schools, in 1878, under the style of The Medical College of Indiana, when he was elected to the same chair he had occupied in the two other organizations, viz. : principles and practice of medicine. That position he continued to fill until the time of his death. He was the first representative from his State upon the judicial council of the American Medical Association, which position he held for sev- eral successive terms and to which he was again elected, in his absence, at the last meeting. He was president of the State Society in 1871, was an active worker for seven years npon the provisional board, erected by the Legislature, and whose work was the erection and fitting up of the large building occupied by the female department of the Hospital for the Insane, and was one of the physicians to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum for nearly eight years. He served a single term in the Legislature as representative in 1856-57, but aside from this he held no position disconnected with his profession, to which most of his life's effort was faith- fully given, never abating his interest in State or local society matters, but being a regular attendant of his county society as long as his health would allow. As a practitioner of medi- cine he was eminently successful; as a teacher he was clear and explicit, easily understood and well remembered; as a lecturer his manner was easy, dignified and not ungraceful. His words were well chosen, his language was plain but forcible, sometimes eloquent, and lie always commanded the attention of his auditors. As is commonly the case with men of his cast he was not financially successful. Though commanding a large and lucrative business for many years, he failed to improve the opportunities offered, which were ample for the accumulation of a fortune. But he esteemed money only for its uses and with a liberal hand he gave it to meet the wants of others; frequently, indeed, to his own injury. No matter how often imposed upon in the matter of benevolence, he rarely failed to respond to the call of want or distress, and only those who were intimate with him knew how much of his tiine and of his best efforts in private practice were devoted to impecunious sufferers. If it be esteemed a great end in life to be remembered when gone from this world, how much better to live in the warm light of love and sympathy, if it be but for a single generation, within a circle that personal recognition can compass, than to have a name in marble, read through curiosity rather than affection, and a heritage under the cold sky of fame, even though it be world-wide. Grudge him not, reader, this line of memorial, whose fidelity is wortby of some better monument.
LEVI L. TODD, M. D. There are men, and the number is by no means small, who drift into what we are accustomed to look upon as the learned profession in the same way that thousands of other men in the lower walks of life drift into the ordinary bread-winning occupations. Having no special preference for any calling, and without feeling that they have any particular fitness for a certain profession, they find themselves drifting in that direction as a result of associations or environment, and in the course of time they find themselves shouldering responsibilities for which they have scant liking, carrying burdens which rest heavily upon them, and laboring in a field which has for them no attraction other
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than what it yields in the way of annual income. The successful physician whose name heads this sketch impresses even those who meet him in a casual way as a man who has drifted easily and naturally into the medical profession, who realizes that he has made no mistake in the choice of his vocation, and feels thoroughly at home in the position which he occu- cupies. This first impression deepens with a more intimate acquaintance, and familiarity with his life leads to the unbiased and impartial view that the unusual success he has achieved is the logical sequence of talent rightly used, together with energy and industry never misapplied. Dr. Levi L. Todd is a product of the Blue-Grass State, born near Lex- ington in the latter part of the year 1830, in the region where his ancestors had resided since Revolutionary times. His grandfather, Gen. Robert Todd, was an associate, of Boone, Harod, Bryan and others in the early settlement of the State. The maternal grandfather, Capt. Nathaniel Ashby, came from the Old Dominion soon after the close of the seven years' war through whichi he served, and settled in the same locality. The father of our subject, Judge Levi L. Todd, removed to Indiana in 1834, settled in Marion County, and there his death occurred in 1867. Dr. L. L. Todd, the original of this notice, was the youngest of a family of nine children, all but two of whom attained adult years. His early
life was one of unusual toil and labor, and marked by vicissitudes and trials. Even more than the ordinary occurrences which so painfully emphasize life fell to his lot. Still he seems to have regarded his life as an uneventful one in incidents of interest to others. He
worked hard during his boyhood, and up to the age of twenty-two years, when he left the farm for the last time. He availed himself of the ordinary winter time opportunities of country schools, and when seventeen years of age took two terms in the Danville County Seminary, and later a year and a half in Wabash College. He was a student of medicine the first year with Dr. David Todd, of Danville, and the remainder of the time with his brother, the late Dr. R. N. Todd. His first course of medical lectures was at. the Univer- sity of Louisville, during the time that Gross, Flint and Silliman were connected with that institution, and graduated from the same in March of the year 1856. The Doctor was married in the following winter to Miss Susan G. Todd, of Paris, Ky., and in the spring of 1858, moved to Paris, Ill., where he resided and practiced his profession for sixteen years. After the second year he was employed almost constantly, and much of the time in service pressing and hard to endure. With bad roads, and in a climate abounding in the worst changes that western weather could supply, he suffered a great deal from nervous disorders incident to exposure and overwork, but was seldom confined to his bed. He was
appointed medical inspector of the drafted men, was a member of the Edgar County Society and also the Society of the Wabash Valley, being president and secretary of the latter. He has been a member and an occasional attendant upon the meetings of the American Medical Association since about the year 1871. He is also a member of the Marion County Medical Society, being president of the same, and contributed a number of papers to that society, some of which have been published in the transaction of the State Society. The Doctor came to this city from Paris, Ill., in January, 1874, and during the whole time up to the present, has been constantly practicing his profession. His family consists of a wife and four daughters.
In the professional career of Dr. Todd it will be observed that every energy was called into play in his chosen calling. With that earnest- ness of endeavor and will power which are the salient and strong points that determine an individuality and inspire confidence in one as a safe and conservative practitioner, any ful- some praise or extended eulogy of the professional or social life of the subject of this sketch would be superfluous here or in any community where he is known. The steady, persist- ent fondness for his profession is a marked characteristic of his every day contact with the infirmities and suffering that come within range of his counsel and medical skill. In the varied vicissitudes of his life, filled with a multiplicity of cares, he has found time, like his distinguished brother, the late Dr. R. N. Todd, to cultivate his taste in literary pursuits as evidenced by the fact of his active and retentive memory in calling up quotations from many distinguished authors both of prose and poetry. Whittier, Holmes and Burns are seemingly his favorite authors. The Doctor is in full fruition of his professional life and perfect manhood. The frost of accumulated years have settled gently upon him, but have not ruffled the facial line of a wholesome, honored career. He is still in the front rank among
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