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 46
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to the political troubles of the years 1848-49. Sheboygan at this time was virtually a colony of German political fugitives and their sympathizers. It was marked for its intellect- ual and musical accomplishments. John G. Pantzer here pursued the life of a tradesman with the success ordinary of a man with marked musical talent and propensity. He died in 1882 leaving a widow and five sons and two daughters who still survive him. Three of these, namely, F. Will Pantzer, proprietor of the Bates House Pharmacy; John G. Pantzer, Jr., a commercial collector, and the subject of this sketch, being located at Indianapolis, the others continuing at their native town. Hugo O. Pantzer was reared at Sheboygan,
where he attended a German (Lutheran) school two years, and then the public schools. He left high school at the age of fourteen before graduation, and went to Davenport, Iowa, where he spent one year as a draughtsman, and attache to the United States Government Survey Office at Rock Island and as a pupil of the Bryant & Stratton's Business College of Davenport, from which he graduated with honors in 1874. Enticing positions in mercantile pursuits at Davenport were rejected. He resumed his literary education at the German- English Academy (at present the North American German Normal School) at Milwaukee. Later, at the same place, he engaged as a shipping clerk and bookkeeper, utilizing his evenings for the attendance at the Normal School for teachers in gymnastics, an institution supported by the North American Turnerbund. The practice of gymnastics equipped him with improved physical health, and the calling served to be the stepping-stone to his medical career. He graduated as a teacher of gymnastics in the year 1876, and pursued this calling during five years, serving as instructor at Sheboygan and Plymouth, Wis., as private tutor in the family of a mining superintendent at Frisco, Beaver County, Utah Ter., and as instructor of the social Turnverein at Indianapolis. Meanwhile he utilized his leisure hours to improve his education by home study and private lessons. In 1878 his plans to Attend Cornell Uni- versity were frustrated by the entire loss of his savings. He felt himself forced to take up the study of his choice, namely, medicine, without a complete humanitarian education. He read medicine at Sheboygan in 1878 under doctors Carl Muth and Almond Clarke. While instructor in gymnastics at Indianapolis during 1879-81, he attended the lectures at the Medical College of Indiana, and was the student of Drs. Wm. B. Fletcher and E. F. Hodges. During this time he served as census-enumerator, and twice as deputy assessor. He graduated from the Medical College of Indiana in the spring of 1881. While teacher of gymnastics Mr. Pantzer had various honorary appointments within the gift of the North American Turnerbund, and was a frequent contributor to its official organ. He proposed the organization of the teachers of the North American Turnerbund, which organized at Indianapolis, in the year 1881. His essay on the prize subject of the year of his graduation received meritorious distinction, and his examination papers in the competition for dispensary and hospital positions placed him at the head of the list of competitors. He served one year as resident physician to the city dispensary. Since then he has been engaged in private prac- tice at Indianapolis, excepting three years and one-half, which were spent in study and travel in Europe in 1884 to 1886, 1890 and 1891. He has attended lectures and clinics under many of the most distinguished men of this day, notably at Strasburg, Munich, Berlin, Wurzburg
and Vienna. He was assistant at the surgical clinic at Munich under the direction of Prof. Von Nussbaum; has participated in the bacteriological courses at the Imperial Sani- tary Office at Berlin, under the renowned Prof. Koch; was five months hospitant at the lying- in wards and women's division of the great "Allgemeine Frankenhaus" of Vienna, and was assistant at the surgical clinic under Prof. Witzel at Bonn, besides taking many special courses in all of the different branches of the medical science. His travels extended over Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Switzerland, England and Italy, and included a pro- tracted stay each at Paris and London. While at Munich he prepared himself for acquiring the German degrees of doctor of medicine and practische arzt, but his application was refused on account of having no certificate of his humanitarian education. He is president of the Indianapolis Surgical Society, and a member of the judicial council of the Marion County Medical Society. He is a member of the Indiana State Medical Society, the Ameri- can Medical Association, and the International Medical congress, and consulting gynecologist to the Indianapolis City Dispensary and the city hospital. He has prepared and read numerous papers before various societies, some of which, read before the Marion County
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Medical Society, were referred to the Indiana State Medical Society, and have been ordered published in the transactions of this body. In 1891, while Dr. Pantzer was preparing his change from general to special practice, he found it necessary, owing to his extensive prac- tice, to procure the aid of an assistant. He was happy in procuring the services of Dr. H. Haeberlin, of Zurich, Switzerland, at that time the first assistant to the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the university of that city, who remained with him until the spring of 1892. About this time Dr. Pantzer purchased the large and beautiful estate on the north- west corner of Michigan and New Jersey Streets (commonly known as the Beaty Home- stead) which he had remodeled and enlarged, and which was arranged and equipped with all the necessities and comforts of a first-class surgical and medical sanitarium. The energy of its founder has already made it one of the most successful private institutions of its kind in the State. Since the spring of 1892 Dr. Pantzer has devoted himself exclusively to the cure of medical and surgical diseases of women and all kinds of surgical diseases. The Doctor's operations in surgery have included many successes in difficult cases. Among these is notable the first successful case of laminectomy (spinal surgery) performed in this State. It was reported to the Marion County Medical Society and referred to the State Medical Society. It was published in the New York Medical Journal for August, 1893, and it has appeared in extract in many home and foreign medical journals. Dr. Pantzer was married June 23, 1891, to Miss Emmy Schmidt, a native of Hagen, Westphalia, Germany, the daughter of a physician. Mrs. Pantzer is a lady of exceptionally sweet disposition and is possessed of many talents and accomplishments. She is a pupil of the Frankfort Con- servatory of Music, where she enjoyed the distinction of being elected to the class member- ship of Mrs. Clara Schumann. She has borne him one child, a son, named Kurt Frederick Pantzer. The Doctor is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He belongs to no church. In politics he is a Republican, but is not a strong partisan, owing greatly to the exacting demands made upon him of his professional duties.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, the famous Hoosier dialect poet whose verses have so pleased the public during the past decade, was born at Greenfield, Hancock County, Ind., about the year 1852. His scholastic training was not of the highest order as his youthful proclivity seemed to be of the Bohemian order. His father, a lawyer of large practice, induced him to become a disciple of Blackstone, but his career as such was of short duration as he ran away and shortly thereafter was discovered as an adjunct of a patent medicine concert wagon. For a number of years he traveled around the country following various callings, such as sign painter, actor, revising and recasting plays, songs, etc. Of keen observation he readily ab- sorbed all that was worthy being seen, and hearing all that worthy being said. Undoubtedly, during this time, he acquired his extensive knowledge of the Hoosier people, their ways and their peculiar idiom. When about twenty-three years old he began contributing dialect verses for the pross. The poet, the author and the artist who have attained distinction and won the plaudits of the world, have usually obtained renown by selecting their theme from the common walks of life. Mr. Riley, in selecting the homely back woods Hoosier as his subject, with his quaint ways and odd characteristics, and surrounding his theme with a pathos for which his pen is noted, has became a national character. Some of his best known productions are: "Neighborly Poems;" "Sketches in Prose and Occasional Verse;" "After- whiles;" "Pipes o' Pan;" "Rhymes of Childhood Days;" "Old Fashioned Roses"; and "An Old Sweetheart of Mine." His production "Little Orphant Annie" has become almost world- known as a beautiful nursery rhyme. Mr. Riley is gifted as a public reader, and the popu- larity of his verses has increased because off his public rendition of them. His home is in the city of Indianapolis.
JACOB FRANKEL. Life insurance, as a business, has, in the hands of shrewd and original men, developed into a profession and has attracted to it during recent years talent that would have made itself known in any of the higher walks of life. One of the most accom- plished life-insurance men of Indianapolis and one perhaps as well known as any other throughout the State, is Jacob Frankel, the State agent of the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Detroit. Mr. Frankel was born in Germany, and came to the United States when a child and located in old Virginia. Circumstances favored his acquisi- tion of a fair education and he was enabled to return to his native land, where he gradu-
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ated from one of the best educational institutions. His home, however, was in America, and he came back and located at Cincinnati, and while still very young located at Union County, Ind. He taught school for a while and then engaged in the insurance business, with which he has been connected np to the present time with increasing success. For sev- eral years Mr. Frankel represented the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company at Rich- mond, Ind., and met with such success that when a vacancy occurred the State agency was offered him. He took charge in 1886, when he removed to Indianapolis. He found the business of the company in this State small and very much disorganized, but took hold with such vigor that now Indiana ranks fourth in the list. He had, of course, the advantage of representing a corporation that had made friends wherever known and whose manner of doing business is especially suitable for western people. Mr. Frankel is very active in other enterprises and is very thoroughly devoted to the building up of Indianapolis and all its important interests. He was one of the incorporators and vice-president of the Key- stone Land Company, one of the largest and most wide-awake concerns of its kind in the city, which has laid out and built up some of the finest additions. Mr. Frankel is a veteran of Company B, First Regiment Ohio National Guards (Lytle Grays), which in its halcyon days won the prize for drill and appearance wherever it went. He is a Mason and member of other popular organizations. In politics he is enthusiastically Republican. Social and hospitable in an eminent degree, his elegant home is always open to a large circle of friends. He was married in October, 1881, to Miss Emma Pretzfelder, a native of Mississippi, who has borne him three children: Emilie, Albert Lincoln and Columbia. There is probably not in Indianapolis a more conspicuous example of the results which follow application of fine capacity with a determination to succeed in spite of all obstacles than is furnished by the achievements of Mr. Frankel, and he is regarded by the German American element of the city's population as in some sense its representative and as manifesting to the public that sturdy character which makes these people successful in all walks of life.
CAPT. J. STUT NEAL. As early as the year 1840 Capt. J. Stut Neal's connection with river navigation began, at which time he acted in the capacity of engineer on the vessel "Iris." He was born in Pittsburgh, Penn., in 1820, a son of Zenas Neal, a native of Conn., and his youth was spent in learning the trade of a machinist, after which he became an expert engine builder, which knowledge admirably fitted him for the occupation he afterward pur- sued. In 1841 he became part owner and engineer of the "Arcade" and afterward built and was part owner of the "Revenue," which vessel he sold to a sea captain and shipped as engineer on the "South America." After this he and Capt. Fulton built and owned the "Andrew Fulton," which sunk near St. Louis, and then built the "Hungarian," which he commanded in the Cincinnati and New Orleans trade for some time. He and his brother, Capt. Reub. E. Neal, afterward bought the "Falcon" and changed her name to "Queen City," plying between Cincinnati and New Orleans. He next built the "Grace Darling, " at Madison, Ind., and ran her as a packet between New Orleans and Montgomery, Ala. The two brothers J. S. and R. E. Neal then for some time operated the largest engine shop and foundry in Indiana, at Madison, during which time they built the steamer "City of Madison" which was lost at Vicksburg, August, 1863, by the explosion of ordnance stores with which she was loaded by the Government, there being at the time 400 barrels of powder on board. They made the machinery for some of the largest and best steamers plying on western waters, among which was the famous "David White, " "Edward Walsh," "John C. Cline," "Em- press," and many others, and during the war they owned the "Hazel Dell," "Sallie List," "Sam Young" and "Universe," all of which were in the Government employ most of the time during the war, and without doubt transported more soldiers than most of the steamers in service. In 1865 they built and owned the famous "Indiana," at Madison, which was a very profitable source of revenue to him, but which he finally sold. In 1867 they built and owned the noted low pressure "Richmond," at Madison, Ind., which was 345 feet long and was probably the fastest boat on the river. It cost him $240,000, and plied principally between Louisville and New Orleans, making the trip every two weeks. She had a capacity of 2,000 tons, had an elegant full length cabin, with accommodations for 200 passengers. Capt. Neal began his career on the river as engineer and finally became commander of his own boats. He is a practical machinist, has had an extensive experience in boat building and
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in the construction of all kinds of machinery. To these two gentlemen is due the introduc- tion of the steamboat whistle, and in 1877 the services of Capt. J. Stut Neal were engaged as assistant superintendent of construction of the building of the Insane Hospital at Indian- apolis, to which city he had moved in 1875, to take charge of the work. He was also superintendent of construction of the Federal building at New Albany, Ind., and has recently received the appointment from President Cleveland as special inspector of customs at Indianapolis, subject to orders of the department. When a lad, like Mark Twain, he was ambitious to go on the river as an engineer and to this position he finally attained. He navigated nearly every tributary of the Mississippi River, and during his long career as engineer, captain and clerk, of thirty years, he had many thrilling experiences, especially on the Upper Red River in the Indian Territory, before the annexation of Texas. In the business of building and navigating boats Capt. Neal has made and lost fortunes, but has accumulated a sufficiency of this world's goods to keep him from want and provide him with many of tlie luxuries of life. He is now residing in Indianapolis where he has a host of warm friends and is highly esteemed. Politically he is a Democrat and socially he is a member of the Hendricks Club.
HENRY W. LAUT. The subject of our sketch, Henry W. Laut, is a councilman-at-large, a contractor on a large scale and a widely known and popular citizen of Indianapolis, who has worked his way up to prominence and the respect and the regard of his neighbors by the sheer force of his own character and by his generous and sociable fellowship. His place of business is at No. 350 East South Street, and his business is that of a contractor in tin, galvanized iron and slate, many of his contracts being of considerable magnitude, and his operations aggregate a very large sum every season. Our subject was born at Indianapolis, December 1, 1850, being the son of Rhinehart and Louise (Nigael) Laut, natives of Germany, who came to America about the year 1848 and located in this city. The father was a farmer and followed that pursuit in Marion County, bearing the reputation of a worthy man and a good husbandman. He and his wife, who are now dead, passing away in Marion County, where their remains are buried, were the parents of seven children, six of whom are living, namely: Mrs. Wamperner, of Marion County; Mrs. Borneham, Mrs. Bierman, Mrs. Miller, of St. Louis; Mrs. Pope and our subject, Henry W., who is the youngest of the family. He spent the greater part of his youth upon the farm, attending the country schools, and in his seventeenth year came to Indianapolis and learned the trade of a cabinet-maker, serving a term of four years. His desire for an education that was practical was so strong that he
attended a night school, suffering nothing to interfere with this, although the labors of the day were very fatiguing. Hence, while he was learning a trade thoroughly he was filling his mind with useful knowledge, and when he had completed his term of service as a cabinet- maker, he had the proud satisfaction of knowing that he was possessed of a good business education. It is this kind of young men who succeed in life; for while many other young men were spending their evenings in frivolity or worse, he was fitting himself thoroughly for the important duties that awaited him; and the idle and the frivolous and the dissipated stood no chance with him in the great arena of life. At the age of twenty-one he engaged in the grocery business, and continued the same for a period of nineteen years, being, as should be supposed, after such thorough preparation, very successful, indeed. His honest and straightforward methods, his enterprise, energy, application and good management com- bining to build up a trade that was enduring and one that assured handsome returns to him. A few years prior to closing out his grocery business, he began his present enterprise and carried on both for some time, or until 1892, when the large interests involved in his affairs as a contractor, required all of his time, and he closed out the grocery business. Mr. Laut employs from ten to twenty men and does a very extensive business. Among the many con- tracts he has filled is the tin, galvanized iron and slate work for the Marion County jail; for the handsome and imposing Commercial Club building; the German Lutheran Orphans' Home; the Tuttle House; the Grubbs House and a number of others, as the Schreber build- ing, etc. Mr. Laut is a member of the Builders' Exchange and takes a lively interest in the affairs of this most important and influential organization. His religious convictions are very strong and he is a sincere member of the German Lutheran Church; is a member of the school board of that church and was for eight years a trustee of that body. He was first
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elected to the city council in 1886 and has since been four times elected, having served con- tinuously since that time. His popularity in the council is very great, and lie served at one time as president of the board of aldermen. He is everywhere recognized as one of the most useful members of the body, and his integrity and honesty, united with his experience and his decided intelligence, give him great influence. Our subject was married in 1870 to Miss Dora Nienaber, a native of this city, who has borne him six children, namely: Anna, William, Henry, Charles, Bertie, and Flora. Mr. Laut is a self-made man and began to earn his own living when quite a youth, working his way up to his present distinguished place by tireless energy and by an intelligent and honorable use of his gifts and talents, which he has never lost an occasion to improve. The fruits of his labors are many, being blessed with much of this world's goods, a happy home with a most interesting family-a wife and children whom he dearly loves and in whom he very properly takes pride, and hav- ing the esteem and the confidence of all who know him.
WILLIAM H. BOWSER. The gentleman whose name heads this sketch has every reason to be classed among the successful and highly respected farmers of Marion County, Ind., for he not only owns 100 acres of land in Center Township, but this land is exceptionally fer- tile, is carefully tilled, has a neat and well kept appearance, and is finely improved with an excellent residence, good barn and other buildings, the barn being 40x58 feet in dimensions and unique as well as very convenient in its interior arrangement. Mr. Bowser devotes bis attention to general farming, and besides raising the usual grain products, raises a good grade of horses, cattle and hogs. Mr. Bowser was born in Warren Township, this county, October 13, 1848, his parents being Henry and Mary Ann (Moore) Bowser, the former of whom was born in Pennsylvania in March, 1810. When but five years of age he was taken by his parents to Ohio, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age, but as there were no free schools in that day, his educational opportunities were few and far between. However, what he lacked in book lore he made up in solid, practical, natural business quali- fications, which he put to a good use during his struggles to obtain a competency for him- self and family. He came to Marion County, Ind., in 1831, and settled in the southwest portion of Warreu Township. where he reared his family, his sons being brought up to a thorough and practical knowledge of farm life. The advantages of an educational nature which William H. Bowser received were of a very meagre kind, but, like his father, pos- sessed sound, common sense and ideas of a very practical nature, which he put to a good use on his farm. He is independent in financial circumstances, a fact which he owes mainly to his own efforts, and in his section his opinion is regarded as authority on all subjects relat- ing to agriculture. October 13, 1880, he was united in marriage with Miss Florence L., daughter of Asa N. and Margaret (Smart) Shimer, a sketch of whom appears in this work. Mrs. Bowser was born November 2, 1855, in Warren Township, where she was reared and educated. She is a woman of excellent traits of character, endowed with a fine intellect and wholly devoted to her family and home interests. Their children are four in number: Harry O., born November 7, 1882; Maggie A., born September 9, 1885; Asa E., born July 19, 1887, and Mary Etta, born August 7, 1890, all of whom are bright, attractive and promising children. Mrs. Bowser is a member of the Christian Church, and Mr. Bowser is a stanchi supporter of the principles of the Republican party.
SMILEY NEWTON CHAMBERS. Prominent in the ranks of the foremost of the brilliant circle of lawyers of the city of Indianapolis stands the name of Smiley Newton Chambers, who has a most thorough and practical knowledge of the complications of law. He was born in Edwardsport, Knox County, Iud., March 18. 1845, in which section the Chambers family has been known ever since the great-grandfather, Alexander Chambers, emigrated to the country shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, bringing with him a large family of sons and daughters. A location was made upon Mariah Creek in a very fertile section of the county, and in the development of this section of the State the grandfather, Joseph Chambers, who was a man of unusual intelligence and force of character, became very influential and filled a number of important offices with credit and ability. His twelve children settled in the immediate vicinity of the old bome, and there Alexander, the father of the subject of this sketch, was brought up. He was the eldest of his father's family and being of an enterprising and energetic disposition settled at the town of Edwardsport, in
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the early forties, and engaged in the business of sawing lumber by steam power, the product of the mill being rafted down the river to southern markets. Notwithstanding his excellent business qualifications this enterprise proved unsuccessful, and in 1850 he returned to the immediate neighborhood of his birth and spent the remainder of his life on a farm, his death occurring in 1866. He was united in marriage with Rachel Keith, who removed with her parents to Knox County, Ind., from Kentucky about 1830, and as she was a woman who possessed in an eminent degree strong and humane qualities of mind and heart, she was in every respect a helpmate to her husband, and her death, which occurred in February, 1866, six months prior to the death of her husband, was a severe blow to him. Two daughters and a son survived them. Up to the year 1863 Smiley N. Chambers spent his life upon his father's farm and assisted him in clearing it ready for the plow. In that year he enlisted in the One Hundred and Fifteenth Indiana Regiment and remained in the service of his country until August, 1865; was in both the infantry and artillery service and was a participant in the battle of Nashville, Tenn., in December, 1864. After the death of his parents he entered Shurtliff College at Upper Alton, Ill., from which institution he gradu- ated with the honors of his class in June, 1870. The following year he read law at St. Louis, Mo., and in the spring of 1872 entered upon the practice of his profession in the city of Vincennes, Ind. In that year he was nominated by the Republicans of Knox County as candidate for the Legislature and with the rest of the ticket was defeated. In 1873 he formed a law partnership with William H. De Wolf, a well known lawyer of that city, with whom he continued associated until the spring of 1889, when he received the appointment of United States attorney for the district of Indiana, which position he held until the expiration of President Harrison's term of office. His practice at Vincennes was extensive and lucra- tive and he was justly considered one of the leading attorneys of Indiana, he was engaged in many widely known and important cases. Although he has never been an aspirant for public office he made an extensive canvass of the State for the Republican State ticket in 1884 and 1888 and has ever been interested in public affairs, both political and otherwise. After receiving his appointment as United States attorney he made his home in the city of Indianapolis, in the interests of which he has manifested a zeal and interest calculated to place him among the leading men of the city. Socially he is a member of the I. O. O. F., is a thirty-second degree Mason, is a prominent and active member of the G. A. R .; and for many years was secretary of the board of trustees of the Vincennes University, to the development of which institution of learning he gave much time and attention. May 31, 1876, he wedded Isadora McCord, daughter of William R. McCord, a prominent and influ- ential citizen of Vincennes, and to their union a family of six children has been given. Mr. Chambers possesses all the characteristics which go to make up a model citizen and has the unbounded respect of all who know him.
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