USA > Indiana > Fountain County > Portrait and biographical record of Montgomery, Parke and Fountain counties, Indiana : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens : together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 16
USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > Portrait and biographical record of Montgomery, Parke and Fountain counties, Indiana : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens : together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 16
USA > Indiana > Parke County > Portrait and biographical record of Montgomery, Parke and Fountain counties, Indiana : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens : together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 16
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Mr. Davidson was one of the organizers of the Montgomery County Agricultural Society, its ob- ject being the improvement and development of agriculture and kindred industries. The annual fairs are the finest exhibitions of the kind in the State. Always a Director of the Board, Mr. Da- vidson was its first President, and served for nine years in that capacity. In 1882 he was elected a member of the State Board of Agriculture, and still belongs to that honorable body, having been re-elected five times. During the greater part of this period he was one of the executive commit- tee, and served two years as President. He is also Trustee of Purdue University, appointed first by
Governor Hovey for a term of three years; he be- gan a second term in August, 1892, by appoint- ment of Governor Chase. Ile has always interested himself in public improvements, and, strongly ad- vocating good roads, he carried the first petition for the Crawfordsville & Whitesville free gravel road, which was the first one constructed in the State under the Free Gravel Road Law of 1878.
OSEPH R. DUNCAN, M. D. Prominent among our city's leading citizens and phy- sicians is Joseph R. Duncan. He is of Scoteh-Irish descent, and his grandparents emigrated from Ireland when the father of our subject was but eleven years of age. The name of the father was Alexander, and he was three times married, the second wife, the mother of our sub- ject, being Susan Robb, a native of Kentucky, who became the mother of eleven children, but died when our subject was nineteen years old. He was born in Highland County, Ohio, March 27, 1827, and one of his earliest griefs appears to have been that he could only attend three months of the year at school. Before long he had mastered "Rooter's Spelling Book" and "Murry's English Reader," "Talbot's Arithmetic" and a smattering of gram- mar and geography. Anxious to advance in edu- cation, while other boys were enjoying a vacation our subject was looking about for means to earn money with which to buy books.
Six months after our subject lost his best friend, his mother, he started out into the world to seek his fortune. Tying his effects in a cotton hand- kerchief he set out for Kentucky and found work upon a tobacco plantation, and there he remained until he had earned enough to take him to lowa, having heard glowing accounts of the fertility of the soil and the general desirableness of a resi -. dence in that State. Reaching Montgomery County, Ind., worn out physically, the attractions of the land farther West beeame somewhat dimmed,
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and with but $1.373 m his pocket our hero con- cluded to postpone his travels until a later time. Consequently, when a farmer of old Montgomery offered our subject $8 a month and his "kcep," there was a young man who gladly accepted the place, and at the end of the month his wages were raised one-half dollar, and he remained for ten months. Alas for his hopes! When he had reached this point the change in the climate did what it has often been accused of doing before, it prostrated our subject with fever and ague, and when he was able to resume work he found him- self $100 in debt.
Not wholly discouraged, Mr. Duncan finally se- cured enough pupils for a school, borrowed money to buy books, and by secret hard study he managed to keep ahead of the children. At the close of his term he offered to return one-half of the money lent him, but his patrons refused it and advised him to use it in advancing his own education. This he did, and then continued his teaching, inter- spersed with farm work, until failing health gave him warning that he must make a change in his mode of living.
At this time our subject became interested in the study of medicine, and the hope dawned upon him that by hard work he could prepare himself for that profession. Therefore, he began the fas- cinating study and taught school to enable him to continue, and finally he removed to Waynetown in order to avail himself of the instruction of Dr. R. M. Earl. Some time after this he set up a water-cure establishment in order to obtain a livelihood, and as he saw the improbability of his ever being able to take a college medical course, he began practic- ing in a small and careful way from his reading. His first office was at Hillsboro, in Fountain County, and at the end of one year he removed to Jack- sonville, although he had never given up his de- termination to make his home in lowa. Eight years of disappointment bad not killed his ardor, and in the fall of 1854 he set out in an emigrant wagon and reached Knoxville, Iowa, October 16, 1854, and with a wife and two small children de- pendent upon him, he was in no position to hesi- tate as to intentions,
Immediately our subject opened an office,
equipped with one volume of a medical character and two nicely-covered patent office reports as an imposing library, intended to impress the public of the Western country as a voluminous display of erudition. That Dr. Duncan had made no mis- take was evidenced by his first year's earnings, which were in excess of $3,500, and he paid his debts and then entered the Eclectic Medical Insti- tute at Cincinnati. from which he graduated in 1859, and then resumed practice at Knoxville, Iowa.
At the call for thirty-day men at the opening of the late war, Dr. Duncan became a member of the Home Guards and was appointed by the county civil authorities to visit the battlefields after a battle and care for the wounded, and in this ca- pacity he visited Shiloh. Soon after this he was made Assistant Surgeon of the Eleventh lowa Regiment, but was assigned to detached service. Nearly a year at Vicksburg he occupied the posi- tiod of Post Surgeon, and later had charge of the Marine Hospital. He was commissioned Surgeon in the Forty-sixth Iowa Regiment and continued with the regiment until it was mustered out, with the exception of a short time in which he was Brigade Surgeon.
In 1866 our subject assisted in the formation of the Eclectic Medical Association of the State of Iowa, and for years was its President. In 1870 he was chosen Chairman of the Committee on C're- dentials in the Chicago convention which organ- ized anew the National Association. The next mect- ing was held in New York in the Young Men's Christian Association rooms in 1871, when twenty- five States were represented. At this meeting our subject was elected President, receiving all of the votes with the exception of three. This was an honor indeed, and upon his way home he was tendered the Chair of Physiology in Bennett College, in Chicago. At first he declined the position, hesi- tating to sacrifice his large practice, but after re- peated solicitation consented and entered upon his duties in the following spring.
Here followed a season of prosperity for Dr. Duncan, but the last fire of 1874 devoured his home and office, with everything they contained, among which was his choice library, then a col-
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lection of the best works of the finest writers, grown from the little sham in his first office. With it went his expensive surgical instruments and his household goods, and the Doctor and his family were literally destitute, with the neces- sity facing him of beginning anew. No doubt at that trying time all the unfortunates thought their own troubles rather harder to bear than were those of others, but it was a time of distress for many.
At this time it was particularly gratifying to have the old patrons of our subject beg him to re- turn to lowa, but he felt that he could not return in such a different way from that in which he had left, and he finally settled upon Crawfordsville as a place where he could again begin the ladder at the bottom, and so became established here in August, 1874. Immediately he began to have a fine prac- tice, which grew to huge proportions, and the next year he was made President of the Eclectic Med- ical Association at Indianapolis. Later this so- ciety established a college, and he assisted in its or- ganization and after repeated requests he ac- cepted the Chair of Diseases of Women and Chil- dren, and for a short time lectured upon Obstet- ries. Failing health forced a resignation, and he was then honored with an appointment as Emer- itus Professor of Gynæcology.
Retaining the Presidency of the College, our subject finally took the Chair of State Medicine and Sanitary Science, but he was ere long warned that the arduous duties of his position were cutting into his health, and he resigned. Since this time he has given his whole attention to his office prac- tice, and so well has he become known that his calls come from far and near. He has been Presi- dent of every medical society to which he has be- longed, and holds the Addendum Degree of the St. Louis College, and in 1871 he received the highest honors to be conferred upon a physician, being elected, as mentioned, President of the National Eclectic Association. Also he has been elected an honorary member of the associations of Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The parents of our subject were of a strongly re- ligious mind, and belonged to the Methodist Episco- pal Church. Their son inherited their tendencies,
and upon his fifteenth birthday united with that church, and thus he continued until his forty-sec- ond year, when he transferred his relations to the Presbyterian denomination. Dr. Duncan is a Re- publican, and was elected one term upon the City Council, but he took a strong stand against whis- ky-selling and was defeated at the next election. In the Masonic order Dr. Duncan has long been an active member and he also belongs to the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. In the former order he is considered a standard authority upon Ma- sonic jurisprudence. He carries a large amount of life insurance, mainly in his favorite orders.
The marriage of our subject was celebrated June 29, 1848, with a daughter of William A. Krug, of Montgomery County, a native of Pennsylvania but later a resident of Crawfordsville, who died April 26, 1893, in his one hundred and third year. Mr. Krug was a remarkable man, still robust and healthy, and he bad his picture taken upon his one hundredth birthday and with five generations. The family of Dr. Duncan consists of but two liv- ing children, Alice E. and Ernest A., and Mrs. Duncan gives much attention to charitable work.
Dr. Duncan is a large, fine-looking man, with a genial and pleasant manner. Ile has shown a warm and sympathetic interest in the poverty- stricken classes, willingly extending his financial as well as his medical aid. No longer engaged in active practice, doing only office work, he may in his deelining years look back with pride over a life well spent.
Le EWIS W. FISHER is among the oldest set- tlers now living in Parke County, in the welfare of which he has taken so leading a part that its history would be sadly lacking with- out some tribute to him. His homestead on sec- tion 26, Adams Township, is finely improved, there being about two thousand rods of tile on the place. Of his two hundred and eighty acres, one hundred and ninety are a part of the old home-
Respectfully yours John SIGoben
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stead, and one hundred and ninety acres are in the place where his home is situated. Ninety acres belonging to him adjoin this on section 27, and of his entire land two hundred acres are well im- proved. He makes a specialty of raising sheep of the Cotswold variety and keeps other high-grade stock.
Our subject is the son of George and Hannah (Wright) Fisher and was born in Brown County, Olio, May 5, 1828. The following year, when he was an infant of eighteen months, his father re- moved to Indiana, locating on the very farm where our subject still resides, which property was entered from the Government. Our subject helped his father in clearing the farm and made this place his home until his marriage, with the single excep- tion of two years, when he lived with his sister, Mrs. Ball, of Florida Township. September 2, 1852, he married Rebecca H. Marshall, whose birth occurred in Rockville, Ind., in 1836. Her father, John Marshall, who was an early settler of this county, came here from North Carolina and kept a store at Rockville in those days, afterward re- moving to a farm in this township. He was Pro- bate Judge of this county for a number of years.
Soon after his marriage Mr. Fisher came to the place where he now lives and has since re- sided. Of his nine children six are still living. Edmund. who married Miss Martha Hickson, is a farmer of Putnam County and has seven chil- dren; Emily became the wife of John Havey, who is a farmer of Adams Township, and has been a teacher; Ida May, wife of Thomas Wright, - Uni- ted States Postal Clerk on the Big Four Railroad, lives in Indianapolis; Clarentine lives at home, as do also the two younger, Albert and Durward. Angeline, who was the wife of Robert McCord, died in Kansas in 1891.
Mr. Fisher was a member of the Farmers' Alli- ance at one time, and is an active worker in the ranks of the Republican party. He is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church and has been for years much interested in Sunday-school work, having been Superintendent of the one at New Bethel, which church he helped to build and was one of the prime movers and supporters. Since 1861 he has been an Elder in the denomination, his wife
and daughters also belonging to the same church. For many years he was a School Director, and the justiee which he meted out to the frequently im- posed-upon district school teacher is shown by the fact that two of those in his district taught for six or eight years.
OIIN L. GOBEN, now serving as Auditor of Montgomery County, Ind., is one of the most genial and agreeable officials that have ever served the citizens of that section. He was born in Walnut Township, Montgomery Coun- ty, six miles east of Crawfordsville, May 23, 1844. He was the son of the Rev. Jesse J. and Araminta (Plunkett) Goben, natives of Kentucky, where they were married, and from which place they came to Montgomery County, Ind., in 1823, and secured a tract of eighty acres of land. Here Jesse Goben resided untid 1858, but passed his last years in Crawfordsville, his death occurring March 5, 1887, in his seventieth year (see his biography). He was a Baptist minister and was one of the earliest and most active preachers in the church, and this interest and activity contin- ned until his death. The mother of our subject was born in Kentucky, and died in 1884.
John L. Goben is the third son and seventh child of fourteen children, five of whom are still living. At the age of nineteen he entered Wes- ley Academy, of Montgomery County, where he remained two years, and then went to school at Thornton, where he remained for two years longer. At the age of twenty-three he was married, No- vember 7, 1867, to Miss Mary A. Canine, the only daughter of William Canine (see sketch). She has two brothers, Thomas and John, farmers in Brown Township. Mr. Goben continued to carry on a farm in Brown Township, near his father, until 1883.
In 1882 Mr. Goben was elected Trustee for the
8
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township for one year. Resigning his office, in 1883 he was elected County Treasurer with a ma- jority of seventy-six votes, his opponent being John C. Dwiggin, the incumbent. After serving two years, he went into the real-estate business for one year, and in 1886 was elected Auditor, his opponent being George R. Brown. He was elected on the Democratic ticket, with nine majority, but on a re-count, called for by Brown, he had a gain of seven, making his majority sixteen. At this time the county had a Republican majority and he was the only Democrat elected. In 1890 he was re-elected over John C. Wingate with six hundred and fifty-five majority.
In 1886 the trials on the contested election of Mr. Goben before the commissioners took place. There were two trials in the Circuit Court before juries, and these were appealed to the Superior Court, and every trial resulted in his favor. The claim was that, at the end of one year as Treas- urer, his accounts were short $27,723.12. He re- signed his office, his bondsmen were released, and new bonds were furnished. He was re-instated, as per agreement with the County Commissioners, and continued in the office until the close of the term, refusing a second nomination. He has al- ways been a prominent figure in politics. Mr. Goben's real-estate business has been a success, and he still owns the farm which he first purchased. It consists of two hundred and fifty acres in Coal Creek and Madison Townships, and he also owns a beautiful residence, No. 212 South Grant Avenue. The family born to Mr. Goben and his wife has been as follows: William J., Deputy Auditor, who took a commercial course at Notre Dame, Ind .; Robert; Frankie, who died at the age of ten years; Clifford; Earl; and Pauline, who is the wife of A. E. Davis, of Indianapolis, a member of the Art and Supply Association. Mr. and Mrs. Goben are members of the Regular Baptist Church. Mr. Goben affiliates with the Knights of Pytlias, De Baird Lodge, and has passed the chairs.
Pauline, the youngest daughter and child, grad- uated in the Class of '91 at St. Mary's of the Woods, at Terre Haute, receiving class honors and the gold medal of the class. She was also given a medal for superior scholarship, and is a lady of
literary attainments. Her husband graduated from Wabaslı College in the Class of '91.
Mr. Goben's popularity among his fellow-citi- zens is undiminished, in spite of the cruel asper- sions cast upon his character during his term as Treasurer. No blame was ever attached to Mr. Goben personally, and the only criticism which could be justly made was that in his official posi- tion he had permitted himself to be blinded by friendship. Mr. Goben, notwithstanding his trials, has not lost faith in human nature, but his heart is as large and his love for his fellow-men is as great as ever before. Politically, he is a stanch Democrat.
ARRISON BOYD. But few of the farm- ers of Parke County have met with more genuine success thian our subject, whose agricultural development has played an important part in Adams Township, where he has large landed interests and is extensively engaged in farming. Mr. Boyd was born in Hawkins County, Tenn., May 23, 1818. Ile is the sixth in order of birth in a family of twelve children born to William and Huldy M. (Epison) Boyd. Will- iam Boyd was born in Albemarle Connty, Va., and was the son of John Boyd, who was probably born in North Carolina. The last-named gentle- man served in the Revolutionary War, after which he came from North Carolina to Indiana and set- tled in Hendricks County. He married Huldy Maria Epison, a daughter of William Epison, who was a soldier of Revolutionary fame. After liv- ing in North Carolina for a short time, Mr. and Mrs. Boyd moved to Tennessee, where they re- mained for several years, and then came to Indi- ana, where they located in Hendricks County and engaged in farming. Ilere he made a good live- lihood, but not being wholly satisfied, came to Parke County in 1835, and located in Adams Township. There are two brothers and three sis- ters now living. Mr. Boyd was a soldier in the
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War of 1812, from which he returned safely, and subsequently journeyed Westward with a view to finding a location, but was taken sick and died in a place unknown to the family.
Mr. Boyd of whom we write was educated in an old log schoolhouse in Adams Township, but when he had reached his twentieth year he was obliged to help support the family. In 1846 our subject was married to Miss Rebecca Lewis, who came with her parents from Ohio to Indiana about 1841, when nineteen years of age. She was born May 30, 1822, to JJason and Nancy Lewis, in Columbiana County, Ohio. After his marriage our subject bought one hundred and eighteen acres of land, for which he paid $50 per acre. He at once began cultivating and improving this land, which he has since developed into a fine farm, and thereon has made his home ever since. His estate is well attended to, betokening a skill- ful management, and the neat appearance of his residence, barns, and other necessary outbuildings make of the place one of the most attractive in the township. He worked carly and late facing the hardships that fell to his lot, was prudent and economical when it was necessary, and invested his money judiciously.
The children that were born to our subject and his wife were seven in number, all of whom are living, viz .: James M., who is practicing medi- cine at Annapolis, Parke County; Anna, who is now at home; Lewis, a farmer in Adams Town- ship; William, who is an active farmer near Mar- shall, this county; Mary, the wife of John Hann, who lives in Beatrice, Neb .. where he is engaged in the mercantile business; Albert, who is farm- ing in Adams Township; and Elbridge, farming at home. Our subject has now one hundred and forty-one acres of some of the best-improved land in this township, which is under a good state of cultivation. Politically, he is a supporter of the Democratic party, and has held the office of Su- pervisor of his township. He is a consistent mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church and re- mains true to the faith. Mr. Boyd has gathered together his riches by unremitting toil, display- ing good common-sense, able powers of calcula- tion, and the strict honesty in his dealings which
has always characterized him as a gentleman. He is now living in retirement, feeling assured that the progress of his farm is secure in the hands of his son Elbridge. He has the reputa- tion of being one of the oldest settlers now living in this township.
ANIEL FISHER was born in Brown County, Ohio, near Georgetown, Deceni- ber 18, 1816, to .John and Nancy (Miller) Fisher. Ilis father was a native of the Keystone State and a son of George Fisher, wlio was born on board ship while his parents were coming to this country from Germany, and it was his father whom the great family of Fishers in this country are searching very diligently to get some trace of, for on his identity as the father of George hangs a great estate in Germany, which amounts to nearly $60,000,000. George Fisher, after reaching his majority in his native State, moved to Kentucky, where he died.
The father of our subject had four brothers and two half-brothers. George, the eldest, came to Indiana and settled near Rockville, where he died. John was a soldier in the War of 1812 and emigrated to Parke County in 1829, where he died about eleven years later; William, deccased, and Jacob. His half-brothers were Daniel, who died in Ohio near Ripley; and Fred, who went to California and has not been heard of since. John, the father of our subject, was a Whig and a mem- ber of the New Light Church, and, although a man of limited education, he had liberal views in religious matters as well as those concerning po- litical affairs. The mother of our subject was known as Nancy Miller in her single life, and was born in North Carolina, emigrating to Kentucky with her parents, and thence to Indiana, where she died in Parke County in 1862.
Daniel Fisher, our subject, was the fifth in order of birth in a family of eight children born to the above parents, there being six boys and two girls. Jacob was twice married; first to Miss Nancy
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Newell, who became the mother of a large fam- ily.of children; second to Mary Brown, who bore him six children and died in Parke County in May, 1879. James married Miss Lizzie Mont- gomery and has a large family of children, who have all been highly educated. The eldest son, Michael, speaks fifteen languages fluently and is a pub- lisher in St. Louis, where he is doing much toward getting the great fortune left in Germany. James was for twenty years a Justice of the Peace in Parke County, and was a Presbyterian minister until the time of his death, in 1883. Polly mar- ried Robert Norwood, a native of Alabama. They became the parents of a number of children. Two sons, John and Alexander, were killed in the late war, the latter at the battle of Richmond. Mrs. Norwood died in Texas. Sallie became the wife of Alexander Meyer and the mother of a family. She died in the northern part of this county. Carey married Elizabeth Allen, and died in Ma- haska County, Iowa; Alfred married Elizabeth Al- len, a cousin of his brother's wife, and lives in Montgomery County, Ind .; Jolin married Eliza- beth Goodin and resided in Kansas, where he, too, passed away.
Our subject grew up on his father's farm, de- voting the greater part of his time to farm duties, but, being of a studious turn of mind, he pur- sued his studies every spare moment he could find, and by so domg was enabled to receive as good an education as could be had at that time. Ilis father was a man of some means and gave his son Damel a start in life. In 1860 our subject bought the place on which he now resides and is using all his energy for its improvement.
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