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 8
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MEMOIRS OF INDIANAPOLIS
dent of the Mississippi Valley Medical Association. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Association, of the Indiana State Medical Association and of the American Medical Association, and is consulting surgeon in cases of disease of the rectum in the Indianapolis City Hospital, and in the City Dispensary; and during the past year he has been secretary of the Department of Public Health and Charities of Indianapolis. He is a strong and un- swerving Democrat, politically, and has much influence in the city and county affairs. June 29, 1892, Dr. Cook married Miss Ella Henderson, a native of Martinsville, Ind., and a daughter of Eb. and Ann Henderson, her father being prominent and active in State politics.
HON. JOHN R. WILSON. This popular citizen and official is a native of Cumberland County, Va., and a son of John R. Wilson, Sr., and Cornelia E. Wilson. On the paternal side he traces his ancestry through many generations of prominent Virginians, and on the maternal side is descended from and inherits many of the good qualities of those estimable French Huguenots who located in South Carolina and Virginia long before the Revolutionary War. His great-grandfather, Richard 'Wilson, was while quite young an officer in the Con- tinental army, and his grandfather, Daniel A. Wilson, was later senior member of the gov- ernor's council in Virginia, which made him eligible to succeed the governor after the manner of the lieutenant governor of a later date. He was also a circuit judge for fifteen years. His son, John R. Wilson, father of the immediate subject of this sketch, was for many years an active and successful lawyer of Cumberland County, Va., and one of the most respected citizens of that part of the State. Mr. Wilson's maternal grandfather was a lawyer of state reputation, a man of exalted character and profound learning. Mr. Wilson, after completing the course at the Hampden-Sidney College studied law at the University of Virginia. After completing his legal and classical studies, he came to Indianapolis in the fall of 1873, and later entered into a partnership in the practice of the law with Hon. William E. English, since the representative of this district in Congress, which existed several years. Later he became a member of the firm of Duncan, Smith & Wilson, and continued in that relation until elected clerk of the courts of Marion County. Meantime, however, in 1883 he was elected one of Marion County's representatives in the Legislature. Upon the organization of that body, in recognition of his acknowledged talent, he was made a member of the Ways and Means and Judiciary Committees, the two most important legislative committees. His legislative experience proved of value to him, and indirectly led in 1888 to his nomination by the Democratic party as candidate for attorney general of Indiana. He and Judge Howk, candidate for the Supreme bench, led the State ticket, as he had led the legislative ticket in Marion County five years before; but the Democracy lost the State at that election. Two years later Indianapolis, Marion County, and indeed the entire country, were startled by the flight of County Clerk John E. Sullivan, in default for a large amount. The grave respon- sibility of selecting a successor to the office in whom the public could implicitly rely to bring order out of chaos in which all its affairs had been left and to restore it to. the status of integrity, fell upon the county commissioners, who recognized in Mr. Wilson the most available and acceptable man for the place. It was conceded that he did admirable work in a difficult and trying position, and under his direction the affairs of the office were put in order and the routine of its business was soon re-established on so safe and business-like a basis that in recognition of his services the Democracy nominated him in 1890 for clerk of the courts as his own successor. The fact that he and County Auditor Taggart led their ticket and were elected by the largest Democratic majorities ever given in the county speaks more eloquently than any words of praise could of the manner in which Mr. Wilson's honest and business-like methods were appreciated by the electors of the county. Mr. Wilson is a thirty-second degree Mason. He was married in 1879 to Miss Nellis Duncan, daughter of R. B. Duncan, who in the early half of the century was for many years clerk of the Marion County courts. One secret of Mr. Wilson's success both as a lawyer and as an official, is bis genial and kindly nature, which has gained him the friendship of all who know him.
FRANK W. MORRISON. Integrity, intelligence and system are qualities which will advance the interests of any man or any profession and will tend to the prosperity to which all aspire. F. W. Morrison's life in the professional arena has been characterized by intel- ligence, sound judgment and persevering industry. He is one of the city's most popular and capable attorneys, who has acquired prominence on the wings of Indianapolis' prosperity.
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J. R. WILSON.
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Mr. Morrison is a native of the Hoosier State, born at Salem, September 19, 1852, and moved with his parents to Indianapolis in 1865, his father, John I. Morrison, having been elected State Treasurer in that year. The educational training of our subject was received in the high schools of Indianapolis, and later he entered William's College, Massachusetts, from which institution he graduated in 1874. Returning to Indianapolis immediately after- ward he began the study of law with McDonald & Butler, and was admitted to the bar in 1876. After this he remained with McDonald & Butler, as managing clerk until 1883 when he opened an office for himself. Since then he has practiced alone. In 1884 he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Company ar attorney on the Chicago Division. In 1885 he resumed the general practice of law and since 1886 he has been attorney for the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway Company. Aside from this he acts- as general counsel for the Phoenix Life Insurance Company, of Hartford, in the West. In 1885 Mr. Morrison was appointed by Gov. Porter, one of the Metropolitan Police Commissioners. In his political views he is a Republican, and is a Knight Templar in the Masonic fraternity. During the years he has practiced his profession he has shown himself to be endowed with superior ability and his comprehensive knowledge of the law, together with the soundness of his judgment, secured him almost immediate recognition at the bar.
JOHN A. COMINGOR, M. D. Among the most prominent and successful medical prac- titioners of Indianapolis, and it may be said of the State of Indiana, is Dr. John A. Comin- gor, who is one of the oldest practicing physicians in the city. He is honored and esteemed by the medical profession throughout all this part of the country. As a surgeon he is one of the finest in the State, and during his many years practice as such, he has performed about every surgical operation known to medical science and skill, having practically traversed the entire field of surgical practice. Ever since the establishment of the Indianapolis City Hospital twenty-six years ago, he has been surgeon of that institution, performing the func- tions of that office without remuneration or hope of remuneration, and his weekly visits dur- ing this long period to the clinics and wards of the hospital have contributed greatly toward the high standard of excellence which obtains in the institution at this time. He has always been solicitous for the welfare of this hospital, and every measure for its improve- ment or for its better establishment has met with hearty approval and most helpful and substantial support. He has acted also as physician and surgeon to St. Vincent's Hospital and of the city dispensary. He is one of the promoters and organizers of the Medical College of Indiana, was one of its incorporators, and for twenty years held the chair of professor of surgery in that institution. At the present time he is professor of orthopaedic and clinical surgery in the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a member of the Marion County Medical Society, the Indiana State Medical Society, the American Medical Association and the National Surgical Association. He has read papers of interest and merit before these societies from time to time, and has been a frequent contributor of articles on professional subjects to the medical and surgical periodicals of the day. During the administration of Gov. Porter he was a member of the Governor's staff with the rank of surgeon-general of the State of Indiana. Dr. Comingor has always been in politics a strong Republican and has been such from the organization of the Republican party. Away back in the infancy of that party he was a delegate from Hendricks County to a convention that nominated Henry S. Lane for governor, and Oliver P. Morton for lieutenant-governor of the State of Indiana. The doctor is of German extraction. His grandfather, the first of the family to settle in America, located in New York at an early day, but afterward removed to Kentucky. He had several children including, Abram, Henry, David, and Samuel Comin- gor and four daughters. Samuel Comingor, who was the father of the Doctor, was born in Kentucky in 1797, and lived there until 1826, when he came to Johnson County, Ind. He married Mary Gibbs, a native of Georgia, who bore him children named in order of their nativity: Henry, George, David, John A., Cynthia, Rachel, Sarah and Jane. John A., now known as Dr. Comingor, was born in Johnson County, Ind., March 17, 1828. His youth was quite uneventful, and the common schools near his home afforded him early educational advantages such as he had. Later he became a student at Greenwood Academy, at Green- wood, Ind. He early decided upon a medical career, and on completing his English course, began the study of medicine under the direction of Drs. Noble and Wishard, of Greenwood,
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MEMOIRS OF INDIANAPOLIS
with whom he read for three years, meantime attending lectures at the Central Medical College of Indianapolis during its sessions of 1849-50, and was graduated from the medical department of the University of New York, in 1860. He immediately entered upon the practice of his profession at Danville, Hendricks County, and was beginning to meet with much success when, in 1861, he was appointed surgeon of the Eleventh Indiana Infantry, and served in that capacity until May, 1865, participating in the engagements at Shiloh, Champion's Hill, the siege of Vicksburg, the fighting at Jackson, Miss., in other battles of minor importance, and in the Shenandoah Valley. During this period of military activity, his duties were chiefly in the field, and while they subjected him to the hazards of war, they afforded him opportunities for the practice and experience as a surgeon which he could never have obtained anywhere else on earth, before or since. After the war he located at Indianapolis, at once took up the general practice of his profession, and his patronage has increased as his skill and success have become more and more widely known. Dr. Comingor was married in 1855 to Miss Lucy Williamson, of Greencastle, Ind., and three children: Ada, Harry and Carrie, have blessed their union. Simple in his habits, retiring in his dis- position, eschewing all display and shunning all ostentation, Dr. Comingor is a most com- panionable and entertaining gentleman who bears acquaintance so well that to know him for a long time is to like him better and better. His strong, practical common sense and solidity of character mark him as one to be trusted under any and all circumstances, and in every relation of life he has promptly and conscientiously met every just demand upon him.
ROBERT F. EMMETT. The office of sheriff is one that has been filled by the illustrious head of this Government and is a position that demands the exercise of great circumspec- tion, great personal courage and a general and apt intelligence. The county of Marion is fortunate in its choice of its present incumbent, Robert F. Emmett, the subject of our sketch, who adds to strict integrity the other qualities essential to thorough discharge of the responsi- bilities connected with the station. Mr. Emmett is a native of the county, having been born here May 4, 1859, being the son of Robert F. and Margaret (Horney) Emmett, natives of Ireland. The parents came to the United States at an early day and settled at Indianapolis about the year 1854, living here until their death, the father passing away in 1866 and the mother July 4, 1878. They were the parents of eight children, only two of whom survive- Mary and our subject. The latter received instruction in the schools of this city and later, when working at a trade, attended the night sessions of a business college, from which he graduated. Apprenticed to the trade of an iron moulder, he served at it until he com- pleted his term and followed it afterward, pursuing it in all about fifteen years. In the year 1886 he became a deputy sheriff under Isaac King and was jailer for a period of four years. He was deputy for one year under Sheriff Henry Langenberg and then stepped out to make the race for the office of sheriff, being successful and receiving the largest majority that was ever made by a man running on the national ticket, receiving a majority of 683. Mr. Em- mett is also the youngest man who has ever filled the office of sheriff in this county. He has served two terms as president of the Moulders' Union, a very large and influential body, and this gave him many votes, raising up many ardent friends on his behalf. Mr. Emmett entered upon the discharge of his duties December 10, 1892, having had such long previous experience that he had to waste no time in acquiring a knowledge of the details of the office. Always companionable, he is connected, besides with the Moulders' Union, with the order of K. of P., the A. O. H., and with the Gray Club; the last named, a strong political organ- ization, he assisted greatly in organizing. While a young man, none of the friends of Mr: Emmett have the slightest fears about his ability to manage his office. On the contrary, the able manner in which he took hold and the thoroughness with which he attends to every duty, confirms their judgment that his administration will be marked by the most highly satis- factory results.
JEREMIAH J. CORBALEY was one of the pioneers of the new purchase and one of the early settlers of Marion County. He was born in Delaware in 1789. His father, Richard Cor- baley, a native of Ireland, located some time before that at Odessa, Del., where he married an English lady. He later removed to Washington, D. C., sometime before the laying of the foundation of the first capitol building. He died there, leaving four small children.
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Robert T. Emmett
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His widow, with her family, removed to Cecil County, Md. Jeremiah remained with his mother and grew to manhood before her death. In 1816 he came to the territory northwest of the Ohio River, and there became well known as a school teacher. Near Hamilton, Ohio, he formed the acquaintance of Jane, the eldest daughter of Robert Barnhill, to whom he was married in 1819. Mr. Corbaley brought with him from Maryland about $600, which he intended to invest in land, but which he lost through the failure of a merchant at Hamil- ton, to whom he intrusted it. In March, 1820, he came to Marion County with Mr. Barnhill, his father-in-law, and settled on the bank of Fall Creek, near where Patterson's old mill stood, just outside the donation, where he remained two years. On August 7, 1820, his son Richard was born, the first white child born in the new purchase, now a resident of the State of Washington. Owing to the great distress caused by sickness the first two years after they came to Indianapolis, Mr. Barnhill having died, the family removed to a piece of land they had entered on Eagle Creek, in the northwest part of the county. Being industri- ous, it was not many years until each member of the Barnhill family had a good farm, the rich soil yielding a fair reward for their labors. One of the greatest drawbacks upon their success, however, was the remoteness of a market for their grain, which had to be hauled in wagons to the Ohio River, where wheat was disposed of at about 50 cents per bushel, and other kinds of grains in proportion. Mr. Corbaley being a good English scholar and sur- passing the other men of that section in general ability, was the business man for the whole neighborhood. For many years he was justice of the peace for Wayne township. He was one of the commissioners appointed by the Legislature, who located the seats of justice of the counties of Clinton and Fulton at Frankfort and Rochester, respectively. Mr. Corbaley made several trips from his Indiana home to his old home in Maryland. It was a horseback journey entirely, and one night while traveling through a wilderness country, in which the houses were about twenty miles apart, he was attacked by a panther. With the aid of a flint-lock pistol and a piece of tow he was enabled to kindle a fire, which kept the beast at bay during the night. He replenished the fire during the night and at daylight the panther was last seen in pursuit of a deer. Mr. and Mrs. Corbaley reared a family of ten children, which was but an average number of the pioneers of Indiana, all of whom married before the death of Mrs. Corbaley, which occurred April 7, 1870, and seven of whom are yet living. Mr. Corbaley was one of the most substantial farmers in the county, and his reputation for sterling integrity was such that it was common to say to him that his word was as good as his bond. His useful life ended on January 11, 1844.
SAMUEL B. CORBALEY. This well known and respected citizen is the fourth son of the late Jeremiah J. Corbaley, and was born at the old Corbaley homestead on Eagle Creek, in Marion County, February 17, 1834. His father died while he was quite young and he was of great assistance to his mother, working on the farm during the spring, summer and fall, and gaining a limited education during the winter months in the private schools of that day, which were mostly kept in the rudest and most primitive log houses. When be was seven- teen years old, his brother, Richard Corbaley, then county clerk of Marshall County, received him as an assistant in his office at Plymouth. He walked over the Michigan road to that town, consuming three days and a half in the journey. The journey was a rough one, for the old Michigan road was in those days regarded as the very worst road in Indiana. He set out with $3 in his pocket, all he had been able to accumulate to that time, and upon arriving at his destination, had but 35 cents left. His residence in Marshall County covered a period of ten years, during eight of which he was employed in the office of the clerk, recorder and sheriff. As a penman he attracted much attention, and the books and other records he kept will doubtless long serve as a reminder of him to all who may have occasion to examine them after he shall be no more. He returned to Marion County in 1861 and has resided in Indianapolis constantly since 1862. For three years he was book- keeper in Spiegel, Thoms & Co.'s furniture establishment, and later, he entered the grocery business on West Washington Street where he built up a first class credit and reputation. He married Amanda M. Dewson, of Plymouth. September 2, 1854, who died ten years later, after having borne him two daughters, both of whom are also dead. April 4, 1867, he married Eliza A., eldest daughter of William Cossel, one of Marion County's most prominent farmers, who has borne him a daughter and son, named respectively Luella and
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MEMOIRS OF INDIANAPOLIS
George M. His daughter has been teaching in the public schools of the city for several years, and his son is a clerk in the office of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad. On December 10, 1884, Mr. Corbaley accepted the position of deputy sheriff under George.Car- ter, Esq., and two years later succeeded to the position in the sheriff's office of chief deputy, a position he still holds. Under his excellent management, his work having the approval of the court and members of the bar, much good has been accomplished. He was the Demo- cratic nominee in 1880 for the office of recorder, but was turned down like the rest of the ticket.
GEORGE HASTY, M. D., long a member of the faculty of the Physio-Medical College of Indiana, one of the organizers and first president of the American Association of Physio- Medical Physicians and Surgeons, and editor and publisher of the Physio-Medical Journal, at Indianapolis, was born in Madison County, Ind., September 30, 1835, and has been for many years identified with the medical profession of the State with much more than ordinary prominence. His parents were Thomas and Ann (Raper) Hasty, his father a farmer and a native of Kentucky, his mother a Virginian by birth. His maternal grand- father saw service in the War of 1812-14. His paternal grandparents were pioneers in Preble County, Ohio, where Thomas Hasty (his father) was reared, and during the earlier years of Dr. Hasty's life, in Indiana, the country was new and much of it timbered and pretty heavily populated with beasts of the forests, so that, though he was born in the wild- erness instead of emigrating to it, he was himself in a practical sense a pioneer. During those early days his mother made several long and dreary horseback trips between the family home in Indiana and her old home in Virginia. She was a woman of great nobility of char- acter much devoted to her family and has been dead for some years. Thomas Hasty is still living on the old homestead in Henry County, Ind., at the advanced age of eighty-five years. This farm extends over the boundary line into Madison County, and on the portion so dis- tinguished from the balance, and on which the family home once stood, Dr Hasty was born. Reared on the farm and inured to its healthful and moral life, he assisted in clearing away the timber and in putting in, cultivating and harvesting crops during the pioneer days, as opportunity offered attending the subscription schools taught near his home in log cabins with puncheon floors and other characteristics of the primitive school-houses of America, and thus he gained most of his early education, though, later, he was privileged to attend for a short time a public school more advanced and more effective as an educational instrumen- tality. His ambition from his youth was to be a physician, but he saw small opportunity to gain the required professional education and, besides, in those days the path of the "young doctor " was not so easy as it has since been made. In all that country there was and promised to be for some time to come, plenty of work for civil engineers and surveyors, and having some aptitude for mathematical study, he determined to become a civil engineer. To accomplish this purpose he found it necessary to teach school to earn money to pay for instruction and to buy instruments. He taught a few terms in the log-walled and bark- roofed poor man's colleges of that time and locality, but finally abandoned the idea of mak- ing a surveyor of himself and returned to the farm and began to think seriously of becoming a physician in the face of all obstacles. He got together a few books, and from the time he was twenty gave to a course of reading on medical subjects every spare moment that was his, for his means were insufficient to permit him to give his entire time to the object he so much desired. He planned wisely and worked diligently, and was enabled in the winter of 1858-59 to begin attending lectures at the Physio-Medical College at Cincinnati, and in the winter of 1859-60 to take a second course of lectures at the Physio-Medical Institute of the same city, and to graduate therefrom in the spring of 1860 with the degree of M. D. He did not waste any timo in entering upon the practice of his profession, but located at once nt Mechanicsburg, near his old home, hung out his "shingle" and devoted himself hope- fully to the more or less tedious task of waiting for his first call in his professional capacity to the bedsile of some ailing fellow mortal. He had not long to wait and soon his patrons were so numerous that he found himself busy with a large and increasing general practice, and at the same time he had by his success so impressed upon his brother practitioners a conviction of his ability that he was made a member of the faculty of his alma mater, the Physio- Medical Institute, at Cincinnati, the sessions of which were confined to the winter
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months, Dr. Hasty's duties being so timed that he was enabled to perform them without serious detriment to his practice. At different times, until December, 1872, when he removed from Mechanicsburg, to Indianapolis, he occupied the chairs of Chemistry, Anatomy and Surgery. Upon coming to Indianapolis he made his presence almost immediately felt in the medical profession. In 1873 he was one of the promoters, organizers and incorporators of the Physio-Medical College of Indiana, of the faculty of which he has been a member ever since, occupying the chair of Surgery until 1878 and the chair of principles and practice since that time. During all the history of that institution, he has been influentially and helpfully identified with it and is at this time a prominent member of its board of trustees. He was one of the organizers and a charter member of the Indiana Physio- Medical Associa- tion; helped organize and is still a member of the First District Physio-Medical Society; was one of the organizers and first president of the American Association of Physio-Medical Physicians and Surgeons, and assisted to form and is still a member of the Indianapolis Physio-Medical Society. He was present at the organization of both the State and national societies and has never been absent from a meeting of either body from that time to this. The Physio-Medical Journal was established in 1875 by members of the faculty of the Phy- sio-Medical College of Indiana, and in 1878 Dr. Hasty assumed entire control of the publi- cation and has since been its editor and publisher, in that dual capacity so well directing it that it has a large and influential circulation among members of the Physio Medical profes- sion, and is considered one of the ablest and most carefully edited journals of the kind in the country. Dr. Hasty was married April 25, 1861, to Miss Caroline M. Julian, a native of Henry County, Ind., and a daughter of Peter and Adaline (Hess) Julian, the former a native of Indiana, the latter of Virginia. In politics the Doctor is a Republican. He is a member of the Masonic order. In every relation of life he is in all things the intelligent, cultured and refined gentleman, the able physician and the generous and helpful citizen. For thirty-three years he has been identified with the medical profession, always honorably, always progressively, always prominently. He has been not simply a good member of it, he has been more one of its promoters, one of its upbuilders, one of the factors in its advance- ment, perfection and enlarged adaptability to the needs of humanity.
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