USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Sketches of prominent citizens of 1876 : with a few of the pioneers of the city and county who have passed away > Part 20
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He was raised on a farm and inured to farm labor, until he was seventeen years of age; he then apprenticed himself to learn the trade of a carpenter, faithfully fulfilling his engagement for four years with
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JOHN M. LORD.
his employer; he then worked at the business an additional year, during which time he discovered he had made a mistake in the choice of a profession ; he then engaged in mercantile pursuits, which he followed for several years, during which time his name was entered as a law student in the clerk's office of the northern district of New York.
In April, 1844, he came to Madison, Indiana, and commenced the study of law in the office of Judge Jeremiah Sullivan, and continued until the commencent of the Mexican war, at which time he enlisted as a private in company A, 3d regiment Indiana volunteers, under Colonel James H. Lane, but before the regiment left for the seat of war he was promoted, at New Albany, to second lieutenant. After serving for one year, the time for which he enlisted, came home and re-enlisted in the 5th Indiana regiment, under the same colonel, and served as adjutant of the regiment until the close of the war.
Returning to Madison again he resumed the study of law in the office of ex-Governor William Hendricks, and was admitted to practice, together with William Parker Hendricks, son of his preceptor, at the Jefferson county bar, by Judge Courtland Cushing.
On the 14th of September, 1848, Mr. Lord was married to Miss Margaret A., daughter of the late Hon. John Pugh, of Madison, Indiana.
He was principal clerk of the House of Representatives during the session of 1849-50. At the session of 1852-53 was elected agent of State, and located in the city of New York, where the business of his office was transacted until 1858, when the time for which he was elected expired. He then became a citizen of Indianapolis. He was elected and continued president of the Indianapolis Rolling Mill for fifteen years. He was the first man to introduce the Indiana block coal for manufacturing iron.
In 1866 was nominated by the Democrats for Congress in the Indi- anapolis district. There being a large Republican majority in the district, he was doomed to defeat, although he made a thorough and energetic canvass, and kept his honorable opponent engaged pretty much all the time.
During the fifteen years of Mr. Lord's presidency the rolling mill did an immense business in the manufacture of railroad iron, and is now in a flourishing and prosperous condition, with more work offering than they can possibly do. Since his retirement from the presidency of the rolling mill, he has been largely engaged in the real estate, stock and exchange business.
As a business man Mr. Lord is very reliable, and consequently
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popular. He is genial and social without a seeming effort to be so. These qualities are inherent, and it required no effort to be so with those with whom he has intercourse.
AARON McCRAY.
Mr. McCray is a native Hoosier, born near Connersville, Fayette county, on the 28th of October, 1820, thence with his father's family to Marion county in the fall of 1833. Here he received such an education as could be procured in the common country schools.
In 1846 he was married to Miss Caroline, daughter of William Bridgeford, one of the staunch farmers of the county. He owns and lives on his father's homestead, four miles northwest of the city, on the Crawfordsville road, to which he has added over five hundred acres since he became sole owner.
He served as trustee for Wayne township for several years, then six ยท years as county commissioner, and as such was one of the projectors of the present Court House, which is a monument to his good judgment and liberality in erecting public buildings. He was also instrumental in the erection of the county asylum for the poor and unfortunate. He favored the erection of the free iron bridges with which the county abounds. Mr. McCray is considered one of the shrewdest business men among the farming community, but liberal and accommodating. Although verging on three score years he is yet young looking ; his person is large though not corpulent, dark hair, eyes and complexion, and what women call good-looking, cheerful and hopeful in disposition, and meets his friends with a smile and pleasant word.
WILLIAM W. WEAVER.
Mr. Weaver was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of July, 1808, and there learned the cabinet making business. In 1829 removed to Cumberland, Maryland, and engaged in his business, and was burned out the same year. With his wife and two children came to Indianapolis in 1836, and for some years worked at his trade with Espy & Sloan. After the death of Fleming T. Luse he bought out his establishment and continued the cabinet and undertaking business on Washington street between Illinois and Tennessee. At the time Mr. Weaver bought out this establishment it was not customary to keep
21I
DR. DANDRIDGE H. OLIVER.
ready-made coffins on hand, but they were always made after the death of the person for whom they were intended. It was a very common occur- ence to see a countryman riding through the streets with a cornstalk as a measure, inquiring where he could get a good and genteel coffin for the least price, the article to be paid for in country produce. They were invariably directed to Mr. Weaver. If the article was not so fine as the silver mounted ones of the present day, they were generally acceptable to the occupant, for
" What the eye does not see, the heart will not grieve after."
For some years Mr. Weaver was associated with Charles Williams in the same business. This establishment was the first to introduce in the city the elegant two-horse hearse of the present day, and to furnish carriages for funerals.
Mr. Weaver buried in Greenlawn Cemetery during the war fifteen hundred and seventy-five Confederate prisoners, and since the war has removed from Greenlawn to Crown Hill seven hundred and five bodies of Union soldiers. Mr. Weaver now not only keeps ready-made coffins of every style, from the common poplar to those of the finest grade, but all kinds of dresses for the dead; indeed, in his establishment
"Coffins stand 'round, like open presses,
That show the dead in their last dresses."
It is certainly some consolation and will ameliorate the pangs of death to know that we will be taken care of by the genial and clever W. W. Weaver.
.
DR. DANDRIDGE H. OLIVER
Was born in Henry county, Kentucky, and with his father and family he became a resident of Perry township, in this county, in 1835.
In 1848 his father, John H. Oliver, removed to Montgomery county, and there died in 1859.
Dr. Oliver is a graduate of the Louisville Medical College, and is now one of the practicing physicians of this city. His first wife was the daughter and only child of Judge Eliakim Hardin, one of the pio- neers who came to this place in the spring of 1820, and was an associate judge in the first court held in this city.
Dr. Oliver is a man of fine personal appearance, courteous and gentlemanly in his intercourse with his friends and those he has busi-
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ness with, and never fails to make a favorable impression upon the minds of those he becomes acquainted with.
He was elected one of the Senators to the State Legislature in 1872, and served two regular and two extra sessions.
JOHN JACOB REISNER.
This worthy Prussian was a native of the city of Worms, born in the year 1789. His father was one of the council of thirteen by which that city was governed, it being independent of all other governments. When the city was captured by Napoleon the council refused to sur- render, claiming for the city non-allegiance to any other power. Their property was confiscated, and the subject of this sketch conscripted, and was with Napoleon in all the prominent battles of the Spanish, Austrian and Russian campaigns. He was in the dreadful battle of the Danube, of Epling, where thousands of men were slain, among them James, Duke of Montebello. He was at the victory of Raap, the battle of Wagram, where twelve hundred cannon carried devastation to both armies ; was at Austerlitz where the opposing army lost thirty thousand killed, and Napoleon lost twelve thousand, making in the aggregate forty-two thousand slain upon that bloody field, besides sev- eral thousand that perished in the retreating army by the giving away of the ice upon a small lake they had to cross. It was on the morning of this battle that Napoleon called the attention of one of his Marshals to the sun, exclaiming " How bright is the sun of Austerlitz ; before to-morrow's sun shall set that army will be mine." Mr. Reisner heard the Emperor's proclamation to his soldiers upon the eve of the battle on the plains of Moscow, in which he said, " The battle is now at hand for which we have longed; acquit yourselves as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Smolenisko, and let posterity, the most remote, refer with pride to your deeds of this day; let men say of each of you when they behold you, he was at the great battle upon the Plains of Moscow." Was present in September, 1812, and saw the great conflagration of Moscow, which had been evacuated, not only by the Russian army but by the inhabitants ; he there witnessed the great destruction of the finest of property. A starving soldier, after the pillage of the city he ate mule meat off of a silver plate; he suffered all the privations of the retreat of that army, five hundred thousand strong when they entered Moscow, returned with but twenty thousand ; he witnessed soldiers fall dead from their horses from starvation and fatigue.
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JOHN JACOB REISNER.
During the retreat, the mess to which Mr. Reisner belonged, pro- cured a few potatoes, concealed them during the day and by arrangement among themselves were to cook them at one o'clock at night after the soldiers had retired, to prevent the soldiers taking them from them.
Napoleon being on the lookout, discovered the light in the tent. Wrapped in a large cloak, and otherwise disguised, he entered their tent and demanded a portion of the potatoes; they refused to share their spoils with him; he then told them if they did not he would bring in other soldiers and take them all. Seeing the probability of losing all, they then gave him a few provided he would sit down and keep still ; he cheerfully obeyed, and when his position was given him he threw back his mantle from his shoulders and made himself known. Of the five hundred conscripted soldiers that left Worms with Mr. Reisner, but one beside himself returned.
One of Napoleon's Imperial Guards being in conflict of death with a British officer, Napoleon seeing the danger called out if he had a man that could rescue the guard. Mr. Reisner having a fleet horse flew to the rescue and saved the guard by slaying his antagonist. For this daring act he received from the French government a pension of sixty dollars a year. In 1817 he landed in the United States after six months "life on the ocean wave," suffered all the hardships incident to a sea voyage, was for some time out of provisions, and but for a piratical vessel that captured them would have perished; but when the pirates found out their condition they supplied their wants until they should reach land.
Mr. Reisner came to Indianapolis in 1836. He was well known to the members of the Roberts Chapel Methodist church, of which he was a worthy and exemplary member. He considered the teaching of honesty and industry the most valuable legacy he could give his children. He has two sons living in this vicinity. One has been for several years superintending the farming interest of Mr. Nicholas McCarty; the other is connected with W. R. Hogshire in the boot and shoe business.
He has entered in conflict with the last enemy, and fought his last battle, and now sleeps in one of the city cemeteries, having died in 1866, at the advanced age of seventy seven.
" Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero was buried."
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
JOHN E. FOUDRAY
Was born in Champaign county, near Urbana, Ohio, on the 12th of March, 1817. With his father's family he came to Indianapolis in the fall of 1834. His father's family consisted of five persons, all of whom are now dead except the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Foudray was married on the 8th of May, 1838, to Miss Adelia Green, of this city. He has been engaged in the mercantile business for several years. He was sheriff of the county, and then engaged with Mr. John M. Wood in the livery business and farming. During the re- bellion they furnished a large number of horses and mules to the gov- ernment. They own jointly some valuable city and county property, as well as each of them owns valuable private property.
Although Mr. Foudray is on the shady side of sixty, he is yet as vi- vacious, and enjoys a joke as much as when I first knew him, over fifty years ago. He is, perhaps, as' well and favorably known as any man in the city or county. Mr. Foudray is cordial and simple in his man- ners, and the pressure of his hand makes friends even with strangers.
JUDGE SAMUEL E. PERKINS
Was a native of Vermont, born in Brattleborough on the 6th of De- cember, 1811. His father and mother (whose maiden name was Wil- lard) were natives of Hartford, Connecticut. The following sketch of Judge Perkins was written by a gentleman in 1857, who was well ac- quainted with him from the time he became a citizen of Indiana, and was published at the time in most of the Democratic papers of the State :
"In our long acquaintance with him we have learned his history. Left without parents or property before he was five years of age, he was adopted into the family of William Baker, a respectable farmer of Conway, Massachusetts, with whom he lived and labored until he ar- rived at the age of twenty-one. In this time, by the aid of three months' annual schooling in the free schools of the State during the winters, and by devoting rainy days and evenings to books, he secured to himself a good English education, and commenced the study of the dead lan- guages. After he had attained his majority he pursued his studies in different schools, working mornings, evenings and Saturdays to pay his board, and occasionally a quarter in vacation to raise money for tuition and clothing. The last year of this course of studies was spent at the
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JUDGE SAMUEL E. PERKINS.
Yates County Academy, New York, then under the presidency of Sey- mour B. Gookins, brother of Judge Gookins, late of Terre Haute, In- diana. Having obtained a fair classical education, he commenced the study of law in Penn Yan, the county seat of Yates county, which he pursued a part of the time in the office of Thomas J. Nevins, Esq., and a part of the time (a fellow student with Judge Brinkerhoff, now of the supreme bench of Ohio) in the office of Henry Welles, Esq., since one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New York, living in their families and writing in their offices for his board and tuition. In the fall of 1836 he came alone on foot from the State of New York to Indiana, a stranger in a strange land, not being acquainted with a sin- gle individual in the State. His first winter in the State he spent in close reading in the office of Judge Borden, then of Richmond, Indiana.
" In the spring of 1837 he was for the first time admitted to the bar, at Centerville, Wayne county, Indiana. He then opened an office in Richmond, being in debt for his winter's board; at the same time he commenced editing the Jeffersonian, which paper had just been estab- lished by a Democratic club. He soon obtained a large and lucrative practice at the bar, where he came immediately in contact with such lawyers as Messrs. Newman, Test, Parker and Caleb B. Smith. In 1838 the Jeffersonian was sold to Lynde Elliott, who conducted it about a year and then failed ; he had mortgaged the press to Daniel Reed, of Fort Wayne, for more than its value. Mr. Reed visited Richmond after Elliott's failure for the purpose of removing the press to Fort Wayne. Unwilling that the Democracy of that place should be with- out an organ, Judge Perkins came forward and paid off the mortgage, took the press, recommenced the publication of the Jeffersonian, and continued it through the campaign of 1840; in the meantime he labor- iously devoted himself to his extensive practice.
"In 1843 he was appointed by Governor Whitcomb prosecuting attor- ney for that judicial circuit, and in 1844 he was one of the electors who gave the vote of the State to Mr. Polk. In the winter of 1844, without any agency on his part, he was nominated by Governor Whitcomb-a cautious man and good judge of character-to a seat on the Supreme bench; he was not confirmed. In the winter of 1845 he was again nominated by Governor Whitcomb, and not confirmed. On the ad- journment of the Legislature of that year, and quite unexpectedly to himself, he received from the Governor the appointment for one year to the office to which he had been nominated. He was then thirty-four years of age, and had been a resident of the State nine years. With
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
much reluctance he accepted the appointment, having to risk the re- election of Governor Whitcomb for a re-nomination to the Senate of the following year. Governor Whitcomb was re-elected and Judge Perkins, after having served on the bench one year, was renominated and con- firmed by the Senate, receiving a two-thirds vote; seven Whigs voting for him."
In addition to the labors of Judge Perkins on the Supreme bench of the State in 1858, he prepared the Indiana Digest, a work containing over eight hundred pages, and requiring great labor in arranging it for the press, and requiring the deepest research into the statutes of the State and the decisions of the courts. This work received the com- mendations of the entire Indiana bar.
In 1859 he prepared a book known as the Indiana Practice. This was in size similar to the Digest, and was also well received throughout the State. In 1857 he received the appointment of professor of law in the Northwestern Christian University, which duties he performed in addition to his duties as judge of the Supreme Court of the State, hav- ing been elected in 1852 and 1858 by the people, as provided by the new constitution of Indiana. On political as well as legal subjects the judge is a forcible writer. His eulogy in 1860, in the United States District Court, upon the life and public services of the late Governor Ashbel P. Willard, was one of the happiest efforts of the judge, and showed his familiarity with the lives of our public men.
Oliver H. Smith, in his Early Trials, says: "Judge Perkins went upon the bench when quite a young man, and was but little known be- yond his Richmond locality as a lawyer. I had seen him a few times, but had no special acquaintance with him. He was, however, well and intimately known to Governor Whitcomb, from whom he received his first appointment. The judge brought to the bench a sound discrimin- ating mind, untiring energy, industry and strict integrity. His charac- ter as a judge was moulded very much like those of Judges Blackford and Dewey, with whom he was first associated. His close application and great research into authorities soon placed him high on the bench, where he has continued his labor since he took his seat with an ardor and laudable ambition that has proved almost too much for his feeble constitution. Many of his opinions will be found in our reports. It is not my purpose to approve or disapprove of the decisions of the Su- preme Court; they are reported and speak for themselves. It is, how- ever, proper that I should remark that the immense docket, with the change of the practice act, breaking down all the old landmarks between
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HON. HORATIO C. NEWCOMB.
common law and equity, and repudiating the forms of pleading with which the courts were familiar, have made the labors and difficulties of the judges of the Supreme Court a hundred-fold greater at this day than they were under the old settled practice, when the court could look to precedents for their decisions."
For several years Judge Perkins has been one of the judges of the Superior Court of Marion county, where his decisions have given gen- eral satisfaction to the bar as well as the public at large. In 1876 he was nominated by the Democratic party as one of the judges of the Su- preme Court, and was elected to that office while holding the office of judge of the Superior Court, which position he resigned to occupy the former. It will be seen that Judge Perkins has been upon the bench almost constantly since 1845. He has been married twice, first in 1838, again in in 1856, each time to a daughter of Joseph Pyle, late of Rich- mond, Indiana, and formerly of Philadelphia. He has a family of two children.
Judge Perkins is rather below the medium size, dark hair, with a quick, elastic step. He would scarcely be taken for more than fifty years of age. He is bland and genial in manners, with a smile and kind word for all, a frown for none. His early adversity learned him to feel for all those who are in similar circumstances, and he is ever willing to lend them a helping hand. Such is Judge Samuel E. Perkins one of the old residents of Indianapolis.
HON. HORATIO C. NEWCOMB
Was born at Wellsborough, Tioga county, Pennsylvania, December 20, 1821; removed to Vernon, Indiana, in June, 1833, from Cortland county, New York. Had no educational facilities beyond the common schools of that period. In 1836 became an apprentice to the trade of saddle and harness maker, but after working at it for two and a half years he was compelled by ill health to abandon the shop for a time, with the expectation of resuming and finishing the trade. Circumstances, however, turned his thoughts in a different direction, and in 1841 he commenced the study of law under the instructions of his uncle, the Hon. Wm. C. Bullock, who was the first lawyer to open an office in Jennings county. In January, 1844, Mr. Newcomb was licensed under the statute requir- ing a prior examination by two circuit judges. He practiced law in Vernon until December, 1846, when he removed to Indianapolis and became a partner with Ovid Butler, Esq., who for several years had done
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a large legal business with Calvin Fletcher, and later with Wm. Fletcher and Simon Yandes, Esq.
In 1849 Mr. Newcomb was elected mayor of Indianapolis and re- elected in 1851. After holding the office six months under his second election he resigned it and devoted his time exclusively to his profession.
At the October election, 1854, was elected representative from Marion county to the General Assembly. In 1860 was elected to the Senate, resigned in 1861 and was appointed, by Governor Morton, president of the Board of Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, holding the position until the election of a successor by the Legislature in 1863. In the month of June, 1864, Mr. Newcomb became the political editor of the Indianapolis Daily Journal and continued to act in that capacity until December, 1868. During that period he was twice elected to the General Assembly as one of the representatives from Marion county. At the regular and special sessions of 1865 he was chairman of the committee on judiciary, and at the session of 1867 was chairman of the committee of ways and means. During these sessions, the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution of the United States were ratified by the Legislature of Indiana, and both those great measures had Mr. Newcomb's hearty support.
After retiring from the Journal Mr. Newcomb resumed the practice of the law, and pursued it successfully until the organization of the Superior Court of Marion county, of which court he was, by Governor Baker, appointed one of the three judges March 1, 1871, his associates being Hon. Solomon Blair and Hon. Frederick Rand. The term under this appointment expired in October, 1874, when he was re-elected by the people for the full term of four years, his name being placed upon the tickets of both the Republican and Democratic parties, as was also that of his associate, Hon. Samuel E. Perkins, who had previously been appointed to succeed Judge Rand, resigned.
A few days after receiving his appointment as judge, Mr. Newcomb was nominated by President Grant, and confirmed by the Senate, as Assistant Secretary of the Interior, but on mature reflection he declined this appointment, preferring the quiet but dignified position of judge of the most important nisi prius court of his own State, to the hurley burley of political life at Washington. Judge Newcomb has recently been nominated by two State conventions, Independant and Republican, as candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana.
Since 1847 he has been a member of the Presbyterian church, was one of the original members of the Third church of this city, which
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