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 36
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As we have already seen, the maiden name of Mrs. Elizabeth Denny was Mclaughlin. She was born in Washington County, Kentucky, March 24, 1805. When but nine years of age she lost her father and mother in a fatal epidemic then prevailing. Her uncle, William Mc- Laughlin, took her to his home in Fayette County, Ohio. There she lived for four years, and then moved with her uncle's family to a point near Rushville. Ind., where they resided until 1821. From there they removed to Indianapolis, then containing but six houses, and settled on a farm two miles southeast from the village. Through that land now passes the Michi- gan road, the Bent railroad, and that beautiful stream appropriately named "Pleasant Run." The farm is yet well known as the "Mclaughlin Farm" and is chiefly owned by members of the family. There Elizabeth lived until her marriage with Theodore V. Denny. The relig- ious and moral training of this young woman as well as her inherent strength of character, fitted her for the arduous tasks that lay before her. In her home in the wilderness, with hardship and without material comfort, she and her husband struggled to build up a home. Eleven children were born to her, three of whom died in infancy. Her aim was then to rear and guard from physical and moral ill the eight who remained. It is enough to say of Elizabeth Denny that no one could ever point to a mean or dishonorable act of any child of hers. The death of her husband left Mrs. Denny with a small farm, not over fertile, with a debt of nearly $1,000; with four children not of age and one a helpless infant. and with the certainty of a future struggle for existence and for an honorable and respected place in the community. She took up her burden with courage, and carried it to the end. In a few years she relieved ber husband's estate from debt; in time she educated her
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ELIZABETH DENNY.
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younger children beyond the limit adopted by her abler neighbors. She showed executive and business capacity of a high order and lived on the portion of the farm allotted to her in the partition, tilled it, marketed the produce, and had money at interest. In 1873, just before the inception of the great financial depression, by the fortunate disposal of her land, she became as affluent as she had been poor. She did not wait her death for the distribution of her estate; but divided the most of it, equally among her children-giving liberal gifts, however, in the mean time, to Franklin College, to the South Street Baptist Church, and to the Home and the Foreign Missionary Societies of her church, objects in which she felt the warmest interest. Lick Creek Baptist Church, to which she belonged at the time of her hus- band's death, affected perhaps by the more convenient location of other churches, and by a changed population influenced by the neighborhood of a large city, relapsed into desuetude and dissolved. She reunited with the First Baptist Church and remained in it, as a member, as long as she lived. Her death occurred October 6, 1890, and she was buried at her hus- band's side, in Crown Hill Cemetery. The children born to this worthy couple are named in order of birth as follows: Martha A., wife of John Wade Thompson of Indianapolis; Joseph A., of Lake City, Iowa; William C., of Indianapolis; Lucinda A., wife of Joshua H. Vande- man, of Warren township, this county; Austin F. and Albert W., both of Indianapolis. Besides the living children of this pioneer couple, their living descendants number nineteen grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren.
DR. THOMAS B. HARVEY. There are physicians and "doctors." The public faith in men so-called is almost unbounded, but it is not deserved in equal degree by all such. There are pretenders in every profession and business. Indianapolis has, from its pioneer days, been most fortunate in the number, character and skill of her family physicians, and among them was the ideal family physician, Dr. Thomas B. Harvey, who was both a physician and the son of a physician. His father, Dr. Jesse Harvey, a member of the Society of Friends, was a noted Abolitionist and philanthropist, an educator who taught the first school in Ohio to which colored children were admitted and a missionary among the Indians of Kansas, where he died in 1848. His maternal grandmother, Mrs. Burgess, a Virginian, when her father's estate was divided. received her patrimony in slaves, wbom she brought to Ohio and gave their liberty in a land of freedom. The mother of Dr. Harvey was, like his father, of Quaker stock and she fully sympathized with the latter in his humanitarian efforts and lived a life of self-denial that he might the more easily carry on his self-chosen work for mankind. When he died the family were left in straitened circumstances and were obliged to practice the most rigid economy. Dr. Harvey's means of literary education were restricted to evening reading, and early in life he addicted himself to a habit learned from his mother of studying far into the night. From his father he had inherited a natural inclination and talent for scientific research especially in the domain of medicine and surgery. In 1846, at the age of nineteen (for he was born in Clinton County, Ohio, November 29, 1827), he began the study of medicine, and he graduated from the Miami Medical College in the spring of 1851 and located at Plainfield. Ind .. where he remained ten years, building up a large practice and identifying himself with all the interests of the town. He was a part of its social and educational life, and organized a literary society which was maintained with weekly meetings during the entire period of his residence in Plainfield. Those ten years passed in Hendricks County constituted a period of intelligent and busy apprenticeship. The spirit and sentiment which had led his grandmother to free her slaves and had impelled his father to give up much of his devoted life to the education of the negro was alive and quickened in Dr. Harvey by the outbreak of the Civil War. His call was not to the front and in the field, but to the State Capital where he was appointed examining surgeon for the Indian- apolis district, a position which he held to the close of the war, and which led him to remove his household to Indianopolis, where he resided thereafter until his death. Following the war came the revival in literary and professional education which has resulted in so much good to every department of human endeavor. By nature and inheritance Dr. Harvey was a teacher. This was first manifested during his residence at Plainfield, not alone in the organ- ization and long maintenance of the literary seciety mentioned, but as well in his activity in bringing into existence the Hendricks County Medical Society, of which he was the first president and which he did much to make studious, harmonious and progressive by the
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establishment, of a winter course of lectures, weekly, for the benefit of students and neigh- boring physicians, and by other scarcely less effective means. When, in 1869, the Indiana Medical College was organized, Dr. Harvey was elected to the chair of medical and surgical diseases of women, which he heldl until his death. For twenty years he lectured in his chosen specialty and was particularly anxious to complete the course in which Death found him engaged, remarking frequently to his family and friends that he might after having 80 done, be willing to retire from the exciting work of a didactic conrse. In the palmy days of the old Indiana Medical College, it was not uncommon for Dr. Harvey to hold a clinic for hours, comprising the whole range of medical diseases. It has been related that, once in 1876, when there was some difficulty as to the hospital clinics and the faculty of the Indiana Medical College had withdrawn from the hospital staff, Dr. Harvey appeared before the class and said: "Gentlemen, you need not concern yourself about clinical material, my associates and I have not practiced twenty years among the poor of this county to find ourselves at this time unknown and unappreciated. Let it be but once announced that there will be free clinics on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons at the Indiana Medical College, and there will be abundant material in our ante-rooms." Under this arrangement he then presented cases from 3o'clock until dark and was not ableto treat all the waiting patients who were thus enabled to avail themselves without charge of this great knowledge and skill. His clinics at, the city dispensary for women were never neglected, nor those at the city hospital, where every Wednesday for twenty-five years he was in attendance, attracting always a large concourse of students from all the medical schools of the city as well as many active practitioners. He was distinctively a family physician, and as such he combined all the qualities that go to make up the highest conceivable professional type. No man ever rated his profession more highly. He loved his work with an unsparing and increasing devotion, and more than forty years in it found him as full of enthusiasm and anxiety to improve as when he began it. He loved bis work for itself and not for any pecuniary reward or honor that it might bring him. He regarded it as a sacred trust, ennobled it in his own mind and gave the utmost powers of his heart and brain to it. To uphold the dignity of the profession, to enhance its character and to widen its scope and grasp, was a burden always borne upon his heart. To produce edu- cated physicians with noble aspirations and broad culture, to elevate the standard of profes- sional requirements, were objects that appealed to bis whole nature, and be counted no per- sonal cost too dear that aided it. Not only was he the chief spirit in organizing the Hendricks County Medical Society of which he was president and before which he read the first paper, but he also aided in the organization of the Indianapolis Academy of Medicine, which was afterward merged into the Marion Connty Medical Society ; was a member of the Indiana State Medical Society, the American Medical Association and the Mississippi Valley Medical Society. In 1880 he was elected president of the Indiana State Medical Society. In 1886 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by the Indiana State University. In 1888 he was a delegate from the Indiana State Medical Society to the International Medical Congress held at Washington, D. C. He was a permanent dean of the faculty of the Indiana Medical College. Nothing could induce him to forego his lectures and clinics, though often he was worn out with overwork and should have been in bed or recreating free from professional
cares. "I will finish my twentieth year" said he to his family "before I resign my chair." Upon the afternoon upon which he was stricken he said to his son Jesse, in the ante-room: "I hope to get through this lecture all right. It is an important subject, and I am going to cite some cases I reported to the St. Louis meeting of the American Medical Association." In a brief half-hour he lay unconscious in the arms of his son and his fellow students and was transferred to the clinical chair on which he had examined scores of patients. Even as he was wheeled from the amphitheatre he asked for his notes and attempted to assort and arrange them, intent only on the work he had been striving to do until the surging stream that destroying his noble brain had overwhelmed the remotest chamber of thought and action, and he passed into unconsciousness and silence. At 8 o'clock on the evening of that day (December 5, 1889), he died. While a resident of Plainfield Dr. Harvey married Miss Delitba Butler, who with two sons and a daughter, Lawson, Jesse and Elizabeth, survive him. Another sou, Frank, who had determined on a medical career, was drowned during his sophomore year at. Harvard. Dr. Harvey made many contributions to the Marion County
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Medical Society, but few of them have been published. Among his papers contributed to the Indiana State Medical Society and published in its transactions, are the following: In 1861, "Report on New Remedies;" in 1863, "Puerperal Eclampsea;" in 1871, "Prevention of Lacerations of the Cervi Uteri;" in 1887, "Ovariau Diseases Complicated with Preg- nancy;" in 1888, "Conditions Rendering Diagnosis Difficult in Pelvic and Abdominal Diseases. "
JESSE BUTLER HARVEY, M. D. Men do not choose professions under accidental circum- stances, or if they do, their names almost invariably become enrolled on the list of lamentable failures. In writing. the biographies of the "successes" in the different avocations, we write for future as well as present readers; and they will ask "why successful, and how?" In answering this question it is but necessary to tell something of the career of Dr. Jesse But- ler Harvey, who was born in Indianapolis November 4, 1864, a son of Dr. Thomas B. and Delitha (Butler) Harvey, the former of whom was a leading practitioner of the city for many years and a sketch of whom appears in this volume. Dr. Jesse B. Harvey was educated in the public and high schools of Indianapolis, after which he entered Earlham College, where he pursued the scientific course three years. He then began the study of medicine with his father, from whom he had inherited a decided taste for the profession, his kind heart natu- rally turning to that field of human suffering for his life work, and in 1889 he entered the Indiana Medical College and after a thorough three year's course, graduated in March, 1892, at which time he received the appointment from the Government as assistant surgeon at the National Military Home at Marion, Ind., in which capacity he served one year. In the win- ter of 1892-93 he went to the city of New York where he took a post-graduate course and also attended the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, from which institutions he received cer- tificates. He returned to Indianapolis at once and entered upon an extensive general prac- tice which has since known no diminution. As a physician his rank is among the first in the city. His diagnosis of disease is comprehensive, accurate and quick, his application of remedies speedy and bold, and the result is that his patronage is continually aud rapidly growing in proportions, and in proportion he is prospering financially. He is fully abreast of the latest discoveries in medical science and is absorbed in his profession. He has found that to be successful necessitates continuous study, and therefore is a deep and earnest reader and carefully and conscientiously studies each case that is placed under his care. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Society and while attending medical college in In- diana he was a druggist and clinical assistant of a city dispensary for one year. He was married June 21, 1893, to Miss Elenora Warner, of Chicago, a native of Springfield, Ohio, and a daughter of Simeon and Rebecca (Harrison) Warner, who were also born in the Buck- eye State. In politics the Doctor is a Republican although he is by no means a partisan or a politician.
ALONZO A. ZION, master of transportation of the Indianapolis Union Railroad, was born in Lebanon, Ind., July 23, 1846, a son of William Zion, who located in Boone County, Ind., in 1834, to which region he came from east Virginia, where he was born January 19, 1812, and died March 15, 1880, in Boone County. He was a blacksmith by trade, but later engaged in general merchandising, a calling which received more or less of his attention the remainder of his life. He was a man of great energy and public spirit, and held various offi- cial positions in his section, among which was county sheriff from 1836 to 1840, and at vari- ous times for many years he was postmaster at Lebanon. He was for a long period railroad agent at Lebanon, and he was one of the active promoters of the old Lafayette & Indian- apolis Railroad, and was one of the directors of the road. The town of Zionsville was named in his honor. He was a Republican in politics, was a member of the Masonic fraternity, and in this honorable secret organization, took some of the highest degrees. He was noted for his benevolence, in fact, he was charitable to a fault, and his friends were legion. He was married to Miss Amelia Sims, who was born in Brookville, Ind., May 29, 1814, their union taking place on December 13, 1832, at Rushville, Rush County, Ind. To their union seven sons and four danghters were born, of whom the immediate subject of this sketch was the seventh in order of birth. The mother is still living, and is a devout member of the Method- ist Episcopal Church of many years standing. Alonzo A. Zion inherited German blood from his father, and English from his mother, a combination that made him a decided, ener-
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getic, pushing and enterprising man. He attended the schools of his native town until he attained his thirteenth year, then entered railroad service, and in 1859 commenced to learn telegraphy in the office of the old Lafayette & Indianapolis Railroad, where he remained until 1863. He then entered the service of the United States Military Telegraph as an oper- ator, and was on duty in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, as well as a number of other southern States. He was on the battle-fields of Nashville and Cleveland, Tennessee and De- catur, Ala., and although his duties as military telegraph operator was considered very dan- gerous service, be fulfilled his duties unflinchingly, and escaped unbarmed. He received an honorable discharge in March, 1864, after which he was appointed agent of the Indianapolis, Cincinnati & Lafayette Railroad at Lebanon, Ind., and became freight agent of the Big Four road at Indianapolis in 1874. When the Belt Railroad was completed he was appointed chief train dispatcher November 11, 1877, which position be held until the Indianapolis Union purchased the Belt Railroad, when he received the appointment to the responsible position he now holds. He has served two years on the school board of West Indianapolis as treas- urer, and the ably conducted schools which are in vogue at the present time are in a great measure due to the efforts of Mr. Zion, and to the building of the pleasant, commodious and light school-houses which were erected through his energy and push. September 1, 1868, he was married to Miss Anna Morris, a daughter of Peter and Esther Morris, of Lebanon, Ind., her birth having occurred in Columbus, Ind., June 11. 1849. and their son Eddie A., was born November 6. 1869, and died September 7, 1890. his untimely death being deeply mourned by all who knew him. Harry F. was born August 29, 1875. The elder son was a fireman on the Union Railroad at the time of his death, a position his brother Harry holds at the present time. Mr. and Mrs. Zion and Harry can each use a telegraph key in an expert manner. Mr. Zion has passed through the chairs of Lebanon Lodge, No. 48, and Magnolia Encampment, No. 45, of the I. O. O. F., and has represented both in the grand lodge and grand encampment of the State. He is a trustee of West Indianapolis Lodge, No. 244 of the K. of P., and is also a member of Comanche Tribe. No. 128. I. O. R. M., in which he has passed all the chairs, and has also represented this tribe in the Great Council of the State. He is a member of the Train Dispatcher's Association of North America, of which he was president two terms, and he was also one of its promoters and organizers. Mr. Zion is a man who keeps thoroughly posted and up with the times, is ener- getic and pushing, and being in the full vigor of manbood he has many years of usefulness before him. He understands his business thoroughly. can be relied upon at all times, and is one of the thoroughly popular officials of the road with which he has so long been con- nected.
OVID BUTLER. This distinguished lawyer, journalist and philanthropist was born at Augusta, N. Y .. February 7, 1801, and died at Indianapolis. July 12. 1881. He was a son of Rev. Chauncey Butler, the first pastor of the Disciples Church of Indianapolis, who died in 1840. His grandfather. Capt. Joel Butler, who was a revolutionary soldier and served at Quebec. died in 1822. In 1817 the family removed from New York to Jennings County, Ind., where Ovid Butler grew up and was educated according to his opportunities, and taught school and read law. He setiled at Shelbyville in 1825. and practiced his profession there until 1836, when he removed to Indianapolis. He continued his practice in that city until compelled to retire on account of ill health in 1849. having as partners Calvin Fletcher, Simon Yanders and Horatio C. Newcomb, successively, and during this period he built up a large and Incrative clientage. As a lawyer, Mr. Butler excelled as a counsellor and in the preparation of cases. With not many of the graces of the orator, his style was concise and strong, neither humorous nor ornate but logical and convincing. He was noted for the rest- less perseverance with which he pushed every cause through the courts and he was regarded as a most formidable antagonist. Few of his competitors at the bar possessed mental strength and culture in the same degree and few were so indefatigable in their perseverance. During a few years succeeding the Mexican War. while the question of the extension of slavery was being agitated. he was active in politics. He established the Free Soil Banner at Indianapolis in 1848. This paper went, beyond the mere question of the extension of slavery and attacked slavery itself in its stronghold. Its motto was "Free soil, Free States. Free Men." Before this humanitarian problem engaged his attention, he had been a
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Democrat. He served on the Free Soil electoral ticket and upon important political.com- mittees and made many speeches in advocacy of the anti-slavery principle in the campaigns of 1848 and 1852. In the year last mentioned he contributed very largely to the fund for establishing the Free Soil Democrat which in 1854 was merged into the Indianapolis Jour- nal in which Mr. Butler had a controlling interest and which became the organ of the Repub- lican party. Mr. Butler also helped to establish an influential Free Soil paper at Cincinnati and he was liberal in contributions to and prominent in advocacy of the cause espoused by Louis Kossuth upon his memorable visit to America. After his retirement from the bar, he gave much attention to the interests of the Christian Church and of the Northwestern Christian Uni- versity, now called Butler University. For many years he and some friends had contemplated the establishment of an institution such as this university, and the session of the Legislature of 1849-50 they obtained its charter, which was drafted by Mr. Butler, and which thus clearly set forth the object of the University: "An institution of learning of the highest class for the education of the youth of all parts of the United States and of the Northwest; to establish in said institution departments or colleges for the instruction of students in every branch of liberal and professional education; to educate and prepare suitable teachers for the common schools of the country; to teach and inculcate the Christian faith and Christian morality as taught in the sacred scriptures, discharging as uninspired and without authority all writings, formulas, creeds and articles of faith subsequent thereto; and for the promotion of the sciences and arts." For twenty years he served as president of the board of directors of the university, retiring in 1871 at the age of seventy. In 1827 Mr. Butler married Cordelia Cole, who died in 1838. In 1840 he married Mrs. Elizabeth A. Elgin, daughter of the late Thomas McQuat, who survived him only a year, dying in 1882. During the latter years of his life he sought quiet and retirement and removed his residence from his old home in town to his farm north of the city. Here his family assembled, his children and their chil- dren, to enjoy his society and pay respect to his wishes in all things. His life was well spent and useful, devoted most generously to the good of his fellow-men.
HENRY CRUSE, farmer. Although over four-score years have passed over the whitened head of this venerable old pioneer, his mind is as keen and as active as in the days of his early manhood, and it is only so far as his physical being is concerned that Father Time has left his traces. His walk through life has been characterized by a sturdy independence, uncompromising honesty, great energy, and the utmost loyalty to his family, his friends and his country, and he may truly be said to be a man among men. He is a product of Butler County, Ohio, where he was born February 6, 1812, but since 1820 he has been a resident of Indiana, at which date he came with his parents to this region, and has ever since resided here with the exception of three years which he spent in Illinois. He is a son of Henry and Susannah (Cress) Cruse, who were natives of the Buckeye State where they were married about the year 1798, and eventually their union resulted in the birth of five sons and five daughters, of whom Henry was the eighth in order of birth. Their names are as follows: Philip, Susannah, Absolom, Leah, Solomon, Joseph, Rachel, Henry (the subject of this sketch), John and Levina, all of whom are now deceased with the exception of Henry. The paternal grandparents of the latter were Philip and May (Stumpp) Cruse, natives of Germany, who left the home of their birth and crossed the ocean to America about 1725. After thirteen weeks on the ocean they reached this country and took up their residence in North Carolina, where they each, for seven years afterward, worked for one man in payment for their passage thither. They were shortly after married and brought up a large family, principally boys, who like their father, who died at the age of one hundred and ten years, became blacksmiths by trade. Among these sons was Henry, whose birth occurred about 1761 in Guilford County, N. C. His union with Miss Cress took place about 1785 in the Old North State and there they made their home until their removal to Butler County, Ohio. In 1816, they took up their residence in Vincennes, Ind., and in 1820 came to Marion County where the remainder of their days were spent. Upon the opening of the Black Hawk war Henry Cruse enlisted in the service in 1832 and was under the command of Capt. John W. Reddin. While fighting the redskins he camped on the ground where the city of Chicago now stands, at which time there were 500 regular troops stationed there and the now second city in the Union consisted of a few French settlers. After the Indians had been subdued
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