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 33
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He was then elected a justice of the peace, which he held for four years; during that time Mayor West died, and he was unanimously chosen by the city council to fill the vacancy until a successor should be elected.
He was then elected school commissioner from the seventh ward and served two years. After being out of office four years he was re elected a justice of the peace for another term of four years, and per- formed its duties to the satisfaction of the public. Since the expiration of his last official business he has been engaged in the practice of law.
Esquire Coulon has had quite an eventful life for one scarcely beyond its meridian. He bids fair for many years of usefulness to the public and of comfort to his family. There are many anecdotes told of Esquire Coulon's appeal to common sense in his official acts where cases have come before him of an improbable nature; in these cases he always weighed the evidence well before he would render a decision which would not bear the strictest scrutiny of law as well as of common sense.
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
GEORGE A. WALLACE
Was born near Southport, Marion county, on the 13th day of May, 1850, and lived with his parents at their homestead until 1863, when he came to this city and was employed by his brother, the late Dr. Wallace, in the office of the county recorder.
On the 28th of February, 1865, he enlisted as a private in the regu- lar army and was assigned to company D, Indiana battalion, 18th infan- try. This battalion in 1867 was changed to the 27th United States infantry. He served for a few months in the south and was for a while order clerk for Major General Palmer at Louisville, Kentucky. In the spring of 1866 he crossed the plains with the command of General Carrington ; the company he was with and company G established and garrisoned Fort Smith, on the Big Horn river, and they were the first soldiers that unfurled the stars and stripes in that region of country. Mr. Wallace suffered all the privations and hardships incident to the life of a frontier soldier, and participated in several battles and skirmishes with the Indians in the vicinity of Fort Phil Kearney. He was dis- charged at Fort Russell, Wyoming Territory, in 1868.
On his return home he went to Franklin College, in Johnson county, where he remained but a short time, then came to this city and was deputy county clerk for two years. In August, 1875, he was married to Mrs. Lou F. Sides, of this city. Mr. Wallace is a member of the South Street Baptist church, and is preparing for the ministry. He is a brother of William J. Wallace, the late clerk of Marion county, now a prosperous farmer near Southport.
ROBERT E. SMITH
Was born on Alabama street, in the city of Indianapolis, on the 19th of July, 1838. In 1852 his father moved to Lawrence township and com- menced farming, where Robert remained assisting his father on the farm. In 1858 he entered the preparatory class in Asbury University, at Green- castle, in the term of the Freshman's year.
In April, 1861, with sixty other students he volunteered in the three months service, and he was elected and commissioned first lieutenant of the company. Failing to be accepted by the government for the three months service, the company kept their organization and went into camp at camp Dick Thompson, near Terre Haute. They were after- wards, at their own request, assigned to the 16th regiment Indiana volun-
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ROBERT E. SMITH.
teers, commanded by Colonel R. A. Hackelman. After serving out the time for which they were mustered in, one year, were discharged in Washington City. Mr. Smith returned home and soon after entered the law office of John Hanna, Esquire, at Greencastle, for the purpose of studying the profession; but Bob had a taste of military life and study was out of the question. When the call was made for sixty days men, he raised a company in Greencastle in less than two hours, and was elected captain of company A, 78th regiment Indiana volunteers, and was mustered immediately into service and ordered to the field. They were soon captured by Johnson's command at Uniontown, Ken- tucky, in an engagement that lasted from half past twelve o'clock until three o'clock P. M.
The command in which Mr. Smith belonged had only one hundred and fifty-six men, while Colonel Johnson had a full regiment of Texas Rangers. In Mr. Smith's company were only fifty-nine in line, the rest on guard duty and in the hospital. In the battle four of his men were killed or mortally wounded, and fifteen were wounded and disabled.
After being exchanged his next service was in the celebrated Mor- gan raid, in the fall of 1863. He raised a company in one hour, and landed it in front of the State House in this city the same evening, and were mustered into the 105th regiment, and Mr. Smith was mustered in as major, K. G. Shryock as colonel, and sent down the I. and C. railroad to Morristown. Mr. Smith thinks that had they been properly commanded they might have come up with Morgan and probably cap- tured him. I think his conclusions correct.
After his return from the Morgan raid Mr. Smith raised another company for the one hundred days service, and mustered them into the 133d regiment, Colonel Bob Hudson commanding. Mr. Smith was as- signed to the command of company F of said regiment. The regiment was stationed at Bridgeport, Alabama, during the whole time for which they enlisted, guarding the bridge over the Tennessee river.
After Mr. Smith's return from the last service he concluded he had seen enough of military life ; he had tried its realities as well as its imaginations, and was now in rather a better mood to finish the study of his profession he had commenced at the beginning of the war.
He again began the study of his profession in the office of Mr. Hanna, at Greencastle, and in 1867 formed a partnership with him .. Mr. Smith was elected and served over one year as city attorney for Greencastle. In 1868 he returned to his home in Lawrence township,
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
Marion county, on account of the failing health of his mother, and re- mained on the farm with her until after her death.
In 1870 he opened a law office in the city of his birth. In 1872 he was elected district attorney for the Common Pleas Court, composed of the counties of Marion and Hendricks. Although the Legislature tried to abolish the office, Mr. Smith managed to hold on the full term of two years; since which time he has confined himself to the practice of his profession in this city.
Robert E. Smith is the only son of Mr. Andrew Smith, one of the old settlers of Indianapolis, for many years deputy sheriff and then sheriff of the county.
Mr. Smith is a whole-souled, jolly gentleman, ever ready to do a friend a kindness, and would rather be right than be President.
JOHN AUSTIN STEWART.
Mr. Stewart was the youngest son of the Rev. John Stewart, rector of Templeton, county of Cork, Ireland. He was born in Kinsale, June 5, 1827. He left his native country in 1852 and came to Indiana. In 1854 he was employed by Mr. McTaggart in his pork-packing estab- lishment and continued with him until the death of the latter in 1863. Since that time he has been engaged in different packing-houses of the city. He is now engaged in a similar business in Noblesville, Hamilton county. There are perhaps but few men in the west who more thoroughly undersand the minutia of the packing-house than Mr. Stew- art. He possesses in a high degree the suavity of the well-bred and educated Irishman, without the blarney peculiar only to the lower classes of his native country.
J. R. BUDD
Was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, in 1833, and received a limited education in the common schools of the country. His father died when he was quite young. He was then apprenticed to learn the carpenter trade.
He came west in 1855, and settled near Mount Jackson, west of the city. After living there about one year he brought his family, then consisting of his wife and two children. After his family had been there about a year and a half they were all taken down with fever and ague ; he then sent his family back to New Jersey, where they re- mained two years.
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SEYMOUR A. BUTTERFIELD, M. D.
After their return to the west he lived two years in Westfield, Hamilton county. He then moved to Indianapolis and lived oppo- site the blind asylum. Having made an extensive acquaintance with the farming community he engaged in the produce business. His trade grew so large that he began shipping his produce to New York. His business at this time is confined to poultry, eggs and butter. His trade amounts to two hundred thousand dollars per year. He is at this time the most extensive shipper of that kind of produce in the State, if not in the west.
Mr. Budd is an energetic business man, and enjoys the confidence of the entire business community.
For some years the firm was Budd & Hinesley. Mr. Budd is now sole proprietor of the establishment.
PATRICK WELSH.
Among the many citizens of Indianapolis who claim the Green Isle as their place of nativity, there are none more deservedly popular than the gentleman whose name stands at the head of this sketch.
Mr. Welsh was born in the county of Kerry, on the 17th of March (Saint Patrick's Day), 1845. He came to the United States, landing at New York, in 1853, thence direct to Indianapolis, where he has resided ever since.
In June, 1867 he opened the establishment he yet keeps, situated on the east side of the alley running south between Meridian and Illinois, on Washington street. He has been quite successful in the accumula- tion of property, as well as in the good opinion of his fellow citizens. During the writer's long acquaintance with him he has yet to hear the first person speak of him but in commendation.
Mr. Welsh is about five feet nine inches in height, round, smooth features, florid complexion, and sandy or light hair, and cheerful and accommodating disposition.
Although he has entered upon his thirty-second year, he is yet out- side the pale of matrimony-although his home is made cheerful and happy by the presence of his mother and sister.
SEYMOUR A. BUTTERFIELD, M. D.
Doctor Butterfield was born in Jefferson county, New York, on the 30th of July, 1819; with his father's family, the late John Butterfield,
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
came to Connersville the same year. In 1821 they removed to Morgan county and settled near where the village of Brooklyn is now situated, near White Lick. He received a common English education in the schools of the neighborhood of his father's residence, in the meantime working on his father's farm. He studied medicine with Doctor Giles B. Mitchell, of Mooresville, and practiced in the neighborhood of his father's residence for thirteen years.
In March, 1862, he came to Indianapolis and has succeeded in build- ing up a lucrative practice. On the 6th of June, 1843, he was married to Miss Arraminta D. Utter, near Dupont, Jefferson county, Indiana, They have one child, William Webster Butterfield, who is also a prac- ticing physician of the city. Doctor Butterfield's father was one of the prosperous and successful farmers of Morgan county, and one of the first to manufacture cheese in that section of the country. He also raised the finest stock of all kinds. One of the finest horses the writer ever owned was raised by Mr. Butterfield. The old gentleman has now been dead several years. His children have inherited a goodly share of his industry and perseverance. The doctor is of a hopeful and cheerful disposition, and sometimes humorous, which carries pleasantry into the house of the suffering.
JACOB WHITESELL.
Mr. Whitesell is one of the prominent and well known farmers of Washington township, about three miles northwest of Broadripple. He was born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of November, 1819. . When but four years of age he came to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he resided until 1837, when he came to Marion county, since which time the writer has been intimately acquainted with him.
In 1844 he was married to Miss Sallie, daughter of David Ray, who at that time resided in the immediate neighborhood of Mr. Whitesell's present residence. He is extensively acquainted throughout the county, having done considerable service on juries that gave him an opportunity of becoming acquainted. Mr. Whitesell has many personal friends . both in the city and the country, and I believe no enemies.
As a farmer he stands among the most prosperous of the county, a man of strong instinct and plain rules.
" How blest is he who crowns in shades like these A youth of labor with an age of ease."
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VISIT OF LORENZO DOW TO INDIANAPOLIS.
GEORGE P. ANDERSON
Was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 17th of January, 1824, and there resided until he came to Indianapolis, on the 17th of July, 1836, and. finished his education at the old High School in 1838, under the tutorage of James S. Kemper. On the 17th of July, 1849, he was married to Miss Harriet Morris, daughter of the late Judge Bethuel F. Morris.
Mr. Anderson first engaged in the retail dry goods and grocery business, on the corner of Washington and Pennsylvania streets, where the banking house of Fletcher & Sharpe is now located, the firm being Drum & Andersons-Mr. Drum being his uncle, the other partner his. brother, the late John Anderson. In 1850 he became connected with Joseph Little, the firm being Little, Drum & Andersons; their business was confined exclusively to the wholesale dry goods and groceries. In 1857 he became connected as partner in the Capital Flouring Mills, corner of Market street and canal, the firm being Hunt & Andersons. In 1860-61 he was principal partner of the Bates City Flouring Mills, corner of Washington and Noble streets. Since that time he has done. a general insurance and real estate business. Mr. Anderson is con- sidered one of the best practical business men of the city ; as an ac- countant he has few equals.
In July, 1873, he lost his wife, and early in 1876 his only son, the late Samuel S. Anderson, who had just finished the study of law, with a bright future before him, as he was considered a young man of more than ordinary ability. Mr. Anderson has three living children, Eliza- beth, the wife of William Bull, Carrie and Lillie, the latter quite young.
VISIT OF LORENZO DOW TO INDIANAPOLIS.
About the year 1827 this eccentric man first visited Indianapolis. He was an itinerant preacher, belonging to no particular church nor holding to any particular tenet of faith or religious doctrine. He was well known throughout the United States, particularly in the south and west, having traversed the country on horseback from one end to the other. His preaching and teachings were mostly in the villages or at the cross roads, where he would be most likely to find hearers; if he made regular appointments they were generally a year ahead. The first known of his appearance in a village would be his standing on a street corner on a log or stump and proclaiming what he called his mission from God " to preach the gospel to every creature."
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
He was a large, raw-boned man, stoop-shouldered, his beard reach- ing to the middle of his body, his hair loose and flowing to his shoul- ders.
" Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air."
When he first visited Indianapolis he approached the village from the south in company with a friend of the writer, whom he fell in with a few miles from town. When he ascended the high ground on South Meridian street, he raised himself in the saddle and discovered the only church in the place (the old Presbyterian), upon which was a cupola. "Ah," said he, "the devil has been here before me; see that church with a steeple, that church is built in honor of the devil." He hitched his horse on the northeast corner of Washington and Meridian streets and commenced his harangue ; he soon had the entire population of the village as hearers. After the service was over he was invited by the Rev. Edwin Ray to dine, and, it being Saturday, to remain over Sunday and preach again. This invitation he readily accepted, and was the guest of the writer's mother. While here Mr. Ray asked him to what particultar religious faith or doctrine he adhered, to which he replied : " I am Methodist chain and Quaker filling." On Sunday he preached in the woods south of town. Some boys had climbed a tree above where he stood. Said he, "Boys, come down ; Zaccheus once did that ; it was never known whether he saw the Lord or not." During his ser- mon a child annoyed him by crying ; he stopped speaking and fixed his gaze upon the mother of the child, and said: "When Peggy (meaning his wife) took her children to meetin' and they cried, she always took them home." Said the woman, " I would not take it home to save your life !" "Well, well," said he, "there will be no crying babies in heaven." At the close of his sermon he announced that fifty-two weeks from that day he would again preach to the people of the place.
The Rev. Edwin Ray had occasionally reminded the people of Mr. Dow's appointment, consequently the Court House was filled to its utmost capacity. High water prevented the reverend gentleman from being present, and Edwin Ray filled the appointment.
Some said that Mr. Ray had kept them in mind of Dow's appoint- ment merely to get a large audience for himself. On the next Sunday Dow made his appearance ; the house was again filled. He heard what had been said of Mr. Ray's motives. When he ascended the judge's bench from which he preached, he inquired "Is brother Ray here!" Upon being answered in the affirmative, said he "Brother Ray stand up.
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JACOB P. BIRKENMAYER.
Some people are like buzzards, they don't like fresh meat, but let it be- come putrid until it stinks then they will wallow in it as well as eat it. Just so with preaching, last Sunday you preached them an eloquent sermon, but they wanted the putrid and stinking sermon of Lorenzo Dow." He then addressed the women who were present, many of whom were decked out in the tawdry fashion of that day. " Here you are, " said he,
" Curled, crimped and gathered, Ringed, bobbed and feathered.
How the devil will make them feathers fly when he gets you." The entire bar of the place, Calvin Fletcher, Hiram Brown, William Quarles, William W. Wick and Harvey Gregg, sat immediately under and near the stand ; he seemed to know they were lawyers. At the close of his ser- mon he leaned over the railing and addressed himself particularly to them ; said he,
" If a lawyer you would be You must learn to lie and cheat, For lawyers, not like other men Have honest bread to eat."
He then jumped out of the window, mounted his horse and left the town without speaking again to any person.
He was an uneducated man ; some thought him insane. He never made any proselytes or had any followers. There were none to doubt his true religion or good intentions. All thought, with a celebrated theologian, " His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might be wrong ; his life I am sure was in the right." He has now been dead about forty years. A plain sandstone upon which his name is inscribed, marks his resting place in the city cemetery of Georgetown, District of Columbia.
JACOB P. BIRKENMAYER,
A native of the kingdom of Wurtemburg, Germany, crossed the At- lantic in 1816, and arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1820, where he remained until 1850.
Having heard of the fine opening for business, and some of the great advantages possessed by Indianapolis, he was induced to visit this place, and purchased of the late John L. Ketcham the northeast quarter of section thirteen, in township fifteen, range three east, known as Dela- ware Camp.
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
This tract of land the writer has referred to in the sketch of his father as the old Delaware sugar camp, where he made sugar in the spring of 1821, at which time he gave it the name it is yet known by.
This quarter section was purchased by William Sanders at the first sale of lands held in the New Purchase at Brookville, in the summer of 1821, and by him made to blossom as the rose.
It has since passed through the hands of John Wood, Robert B. Duncan, John L. Ketcham, and from the latter to Mr. Birkenmayer.
When Mr. B. purchased it, in 1850, at eighty dollars per acre, he was playfully rebuked by some of the citizens for coming here and run- ning up the price of land upon them. Subsequent events proved his sagacity and foresight, for in 1856 he sold forty acres of the same tract to Henry Weghorst for three hundred and fifty dollars per acre, realiz- ing twelve hundred dollars more than he paid for the whole. This farm was among the first improved in the county, and produced the finest va- rieties of fruits and vegetables.
Mr. Wood at one time owned land adjoining this sufficient to make the whole tract four hundred and eighty acres, most of which is now worth at least one thousand dollars per acre.
Delaware Camp has, from the time this town was but a village, been the resort of the belles and beaux of the place, and many has been the wedding engagement made in a ride to and from it.
It was in that house the writer first saw his better half, on the occa- sion of the wedding of Robert L. Browning to Miss Mary, daughter of Mr. Wood. Little did he dream twenty years before, when he was gathering the sugar water among the nettles knee high, that upon that very ground he would first meet her who was to be his partner in life's rugged journey. Such is life.
At the time Mr. B. purchased this farm it was an almost unbroken forest from what is now called and including Stilz Woods to the corner of East street and Virginia avenue.
J. GEORGE STILZ,
Who is at this time engaged in the business of a seedsman and dealer in agricultural implements, was born in the city of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, in the year 1834, and as a ward of that grand old common- wealth received at her hands a liberal education in the public schools.
Graduating in 1851 from the Central High School of that city, young Stilz entered the mercantile life by engaging with one of the
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CAPTAIN JOHN CAIN.
largest commercial houses of his native city, and with whom he con- tinued until the close of 1856, when, being dissatisfied with the limited opportunities for advancement in an overcrowded east, he ventured west in January, 1857, and reaching Indianapolis concluded to settle here, engaged in the capacity of clerk with Tousey & Byram, and remained with them until March, 1858.
Being of a mechanical turn, and also agriculturally inclined, Mr. Stilz, on the first of June of that year, formed a copartnership with P. S. Birkenmayer, dealer in seeds and agricultural implements, it being the pioneer establishment in this line in the city, of which business, by the withdrawal of Mr. Birkenmayer in March, 1861, Mr. Stilz has been and is now sole proprietor.
Much of Mr. Stilz's success in this business is no doubt attributable to his being a practical cultivator and agriculturist, as since his advent into the seed and implement trade he has been actively engaged in the culture of all the varied products of the soil, thus gaining by experience the discrimination and knowledge necessary to the accurate selection of his own wares, and the proper conduct of his business. That the same has been conducted with marked ability and success is evidenced by the steady and permanent growth of his business and the widely extended reputation which this house enjoys.
Mr. Stilz is just now in the prime of life, with a healthy and robust constitution, a fine form and a good personal address, and possesses the happy faculty of making friends of all whom business or circumstances brings him in contact.
Although seven years have elapsed since the above was written, Mr. Stilz is yet in the same business and at the same place, where his busi- ness has steadily increased until it is one of the largest establishments of the kind in the entire west.
CAPTAIN JOHN CAIN
Was a native of the Old Dominion, born in Culpepper county in the year 1805. He there learned the book-binding business, but ere he had attained his majority came west, and for a short time worked at his trade in Hamilton, Ohio.
In the year 1826 he came to Indianapolis, when its whole population did not exceed eight hundred souls. He immediately opened the first book-bindery in the place. In 1832 he published a book of miscellan- eous poems, the first book of any kind, with the exception of the laws
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SKETCHES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS.
of the State, published in the place ; he also opened the first bookstore about that time. Shortly after his arrival here he wooed and won the hand of Miss Eliza Jenison, the only daughter of the late Rufus Jenison, one of the prominent farmers of the county ; she at that time, although a child in years, was one of the reigning belles of the city.
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