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 42
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PROFESSOR JAMES S. BLACK.
continued with them, and is now the teller in what is now known as Harrison's Bank.
On the 16th of September, 1858, Mr. Watson was married to Miss Georgia W., daughter of the late Jacob Landis, who was one of the pioneers of Indianapolis and the third sheriff of Marion county. Mrs. Watson died on the 15th of September, 1870, lacking one day of hav- ing been married twelve years. Mr. Watson has never sought to find one to fill her place and is yet single-a rare case when men so young have lost their companion to remain single seven years. Mr. Watson is rather below the medium height, square, heavy form, florid complex- ion and pleasing address, and is popular and accommodating in the po- sition he fills, indeed, were he otherwise he would scarcely be found in Harrison's Bank. He has been with those gentlemen over twenty years, which is a sufficient guarantee of his business qualifications and integrity.
PROFESSOR JAMES S. BLACK.
Professor Black was born at Putney, Vermont, on the 9th of July, 1819. His parents were farmers, and Mr. Black worked on the farm in summer, but was determined to have an education and went to school during the winter season, and received the most of it at the Townsend Seminary in his native State. At the age of seventeen he was a teacher in the Vermont schools. At the age of twenty he went to the city of New York and there engaged as a teacher in the public schools. It was in the latter city he availed himself of the fine opportunities the city afforded of perfecting himself in the study of music which he had begun before leaving Vermont, where he did not have the advantage of masters in the profession. There he studied under De Beguis and Partelli, taking lessons by candle light in the morning. At the age of twenty-one he was married to Miss H. Maria King, of Patterson, New Jersey, daugh- ter of the late Aaron King, one of the pioneers of that State.
Professor Black then became associate editor and correspondent of the Musical Times, of New York, one of the best musical journals ever published. He was a chorister of reputation in some of the principal churches in New York as long as he remained there. In 1859 he went to Rochester, New York, where he resided seven years, writing with great success. His institute burning, he lost everything he had. He then came west to begin anew. Starting for St. Louis, he stopped over to visit friends in Indianapolis, who persuaded him to remain in this city. Of his success here I clip the following from Church's Musical
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Visitor, of Cincinnati, which will give the reader an idea of the work of Professor Black since he became a resident of this city.
"AN INDIANAPOLIS PROFESSOR .- Among the throng of melodious strangers that poured into. Cincinnati during last month to revel in the marvelous music of the Thomas orchestra, we mention with pleasure Professor J. S. Black, of Indianapolis, to whom the Visitor is indebted for a brief but pleasant visit. Professor Black sketched for us in hope- ful colors the outline of musical events at the Hoosier metropolis. We believe that the people of Indianapolis are not sparing of praise in dwell- ing upon Professor Black's labors in the cause of art in their midst. With the Visitor his name has long been connected with the musical progress of our sister city. To his energetic work in connection with the Choral Union, which has brought out some of the grandest speci- mens of oratorio music, is due much of whatever credit Indianapolis takes to herself as a musical city."
Professor Black has had four children ; two sons and two daughters. His sons are living in this city ; his daughters are dead. One is buried in New Jersey, the other in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Professor Black is a large, fine looking man, and calculated to attract attention wherever he may be, or in any society. Not only is he gifted in the line of his profession, but possesses fine conversational powers, with agreeable and pleasant manners. He is a favorite with amateur as well as professional musicians, and stands at the head of his profession. No person of this city thinks their musical education complete until they have taken a course of lessons from him.
ALMUS E. VINTON
Was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 9th of March, 1821. He came to Indianapolis and engaged in the foundry business in connection with Mr. Hasselman, the firm being Hasselman & Vinton. Their establish- ment, the Washington Foundry, was situated on Louisiana street near the east end of the Union Depot. After doing a large business for fif- teen years, Mr. Vinton retired from the establishment in 1865. He then, in 1866, commenced the wholesale drug business in connection with Mr. A. Kiefer. In 1869 he engaged with H. Salsbury in the man- ufacture of paper on the arm of the canal, west of West and north of Washington street, the firm being known as H. Salsbury & Co.
Mr. Vinton died on the 21st of June, 1870, leaving a wife and four children-Mrs. J. H. Ruddell, M. E. Vinton, Mrs. Henry D. Pierce
463
JUDGE ELIJAH B. MARTINDALE.
and Lindley Vinton. M. E. Vinton is connected with Ruddell, Wal- cott & Vinton, doing an insurance and money brokerage business, and is also connected with H. Salsbury in the Indianapolis paper mill.
Almus E. Vinton had accumulated a large property during the twenty years he was a citizen of Indianapolis. His family own and live in a fine residence on North Meridian street ; they also own valuable business property on the southwest corner of Pennsylvania and Market streets. As a business man Mr. Vinton had few equals and no superi- ors; industrious and energetic beyond his physical ability of endurance, which brought on the disease of which he died. Although the writer was but slightly acquainted with him, yet sufficiently so to learn he was a man of the strictest integrity and valued his word beyond price. In his death Indianapolis lost one of her most valued citizens, whose loss. was irreparable.
JUDGE ELIJAH B. MARTINDALE.
Judge Martindale is a native Hoosier, born on the 22d of August, 1828, in Wayne county, Indiana. When he was but four years old his. parents removed to Henry county, and settled on a farm near New- castle, where the subject of this sketch lived until he was sixteen years old, up to which time he worked on the farm and became accustomed to. farm life. He was then apprenticed to learn the saddlery business, attending school through the winter months, working at his trade on Saturdays and at night. In this way at the age of twenty he had ob- tained a good English education as well as being a fair mechanic. He then studied law, and in 1850 commenced the practice in the county of his adoption. Here he remained twelve years, in the meantime hold- ing the offices of district attorney, prosecuting attorney for the counties of Henry, Randolph, Delaware and Wayne; he was also appointed Common Pleas judge of the district composed of the counties of Rush, Henry, Decatur and Madison. In the spring of 1862 he came to this city and engaged in the practice of his profession, since which time he has taken an active part in nearly all the enterprises calculated to redound to the interest of the city. Judge Martindale is a man of sound judgment and good practical common sense ; reasons from cause to effect ; takes things as he finds them and makes the most of them he can. Since Judge Martindale has been a citizen of Indianapolis he has added largely to its growth and prosperity. He purchased the Roberts Chapel at the northeast corner of Market and Pennsylvania streets and converted it
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into a fine business block, also the lot east of it on which stood the first brick house ever erected in Indianapolis. The old house he has had re- moved and its place supplied by an elegant block of business houses. He has erected for himself a palatial residence on North Meridian street, where he now resides. He is at this time proprietor and publisher of the Indianapolis Journal, the leading Republican paper of the State. There are many private enterprises in which he is engaged where he is scarcely known to the public. Judge Martindale's father was one of the pioneer Christian ministers of the State, and in that church the judge was brought up. Since he has grown up he united with the Presbyte- rian, and he is a member of the First church of that denomination in this city. He is also superintendent of its Sunday school. To Judge Elijah B. Martindale Indianapolis owes much of her prosperity, and its citizens should be proud to number him among them. He has ever been ready to respond to calls made on him in the cause of humanity.
DR. JOHN STOUGH BOBBS.
The following eulogy of Dr. Bobbs was read before the Indiana State Medical Society at the session of 1871, by Dr. G. W. Mears of this city: " Professor John Stough Bobbs, the subject of this memoir, was born at Green Village, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December, 1809. His boyhood was spent, his parents being poor, in the acquisition of such knowledge as could be obtained at the then very common schools of a country village. At the age of eighteen, he wended his way on foot to Harrisburg, then, as now, the seat of gov- ernment of Pennsylvania, in quest of employment. Being a lad of much more than ordinary intelligence, he attracted the attention of Dr. Martin Luther, then a practitioner of some eminence in that city. Upon a more thorough acquaintance, the doctor's interest increased, and feeling that the delicate and slender physique of his young friend unfitted him for the more rugged encounter with the world, proposed, upon the most liberal terms, his entrance to his office as a student of medicine.
"Unhappily, this noble patron did not long survive to see with what fidelity to his own interests, and with what devotion to study his protege had rewarded his generosity. Such indeed was the diligence with which he applied himself to books, that, notwithstanding the obstacles of a deficient preliminary education, he fitted himself, with the aid of a sin- gle course of lectures, for the successful practice of his profession in less than three years. His first essay in this direction was made at
22 Moules,
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DR. JOHN STOUGH BOBBS.
Middletown, Pennsylvania, where he remained four years. Having early determined to make surgery a specialty, he found the locality he had chosen unsuited for the work, and soon decided upon selecting some point in the great west as the field of his future labors.
"In 1835 he came to Indianapolis, with the view of making it his permanent residence. True to his great purpose of securing for him- self distinction in his chosen profession, he now gave himself up to the study-severe, unremitting study-both classical and professional. Soon, sufficiently familiar with the languages, he bent his entire energies to investigations in his favorite department. As a means of furthering the objects of his very earnest pursuit after surgical knowledge, he concluded to avail himself of the advantages of a winter's dissections and clinical observations at Jefferson Medical College, where the degree of doctor of medicine was conferred upon him. Rapidly attaining a reputation throughout the length and breadth of this State which might satisfy the most vaulting ambition, he was tendered by the trustees of Asbury University the chair of surgery in the Central Medical College, then about being established in this city. The position, as known to many of you, was accepted by him. How he acquitted himself in this new rela- tion I desire shall be told by friend Major J. W. Gordon, then a pupil in that institution, who thus writes me :
"' I made the acquaintance of Prof. Bobbs during the winter of 1850-51. He was then professor of surgery in the Indiana Central Medical College and dean of the faculty. I was a member of the class ; and while making all due allowance for the partiality likely to arise in my mind from the relation between us, as professor and student, believe I but express the judgment of a fair and just appreciation of his lectures and operations before his class when I say that in both respects he was fully up to the highest standards of the profession. His descrip- tion of healthy and diseased action, and the changes from the one to the other, have never been surpassed in point of clearness, accuracy, and graphic force and eloquence. All that is possible for words to accomplish in bringing before the mind those great changes upon which health or disease, life or death depend, was effected by him in his lec- tures. The student who did not carry away in his memory such a por- trait of each disease described by the professor, as to be able to detect the original when presented for examination, must have lacked some mental endowment essential to success in his profession. Nor was he less remarkable for self-possession, steadiness, rapidity and accuracy in the use of the knife. No man ever saw his hand tremble or his cheek
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lose its color in the presence of the most terrible complications attend- ant upon great and dangerous operations. But his self-control on such occasions was never the result either of ignorance or of indifference to the consequences threatened and imminent in such cases ; for he com- bined the clearest insight with the most thorough knowledge of the sit- uation in which he was placed, and with a tender sensibility almost fem- inine in its character, felt every pang which disease, or his efforts to remove it, inflicted upon his patient. Shallow observers, incapable of penetrating through the mask which his stern self command held up between them, and his profound soul of love and pity, often pronounced him harsh and insensible to human suffering. Nor did he ever stop in the high career of duty to correct their unjust judgments, satisfied that it is better to " feel another's woe " and labor effectually to relieve it, than to receive the applause of the multitude for services never rendered, and pity never felt for the suffering children of men. He scorned to seem, but labored to be, a true benefactor of mankind.
""'Such was the impression of the man, which I carried away with me at the close of the term in the spring of 1851 ; and an intimate ac- quaintance of nearly twenty subsequent years never presented a single fact or ground to lead me to doubt its entire accuracy. He always held his profession sacred, high above all trickery and quackery, and labored with incessant diligence to place it, in public estimation, upon the same footing it held in his own regard. The most earnest and eloquent words that I have ever heard came from his heart and lips, when urging upon the minds of his classes the duty of fidelity to the cause of scientific medicine. In that duty he was ever faithful, even to the moment of his deatlı, and has left his brethren, both in his words and deeds, a lesson they should never forget, to be true to the great field of truth and duty committed to their culture.'
"To the poor and needy he was always wisely kind and beneficent. When called upon professionally to attend the sick poor, he was known in innumerable instances to furnish, beside gratuitous service and neces- sary medicine, the means of life during their illness. The great beauty of his character, in this respect, was that his charities were always ren- dered without display or ostentation. A friend of mine furnishes an illustration worthy, I think, of record: Not long before his death, the gentleman alluded to, a physician residing in this city, invited the pro- fessor to a consultation in the country. Returning from the object of their visit, the doctor was hailed by a person from a cabin on the way- side, and requested to see a sick child. Discovering that the case was a
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DR. JOHN STOUGH BOBBS.
bad one, he stepped to the door and asked the professor to see it. Hav- ing examined the patient, he returned to his carriage, leaving the doctor to make out his prescription. As the latter approached the carriage he said to him: 'Doctor, this child is going to die, and the poor woman will not have wherewith to bury it.' Withdrawing his hand from his pocket, and presenting it with the palm downward, as if to conceal from the left what the right hand was doing, he dropped into the extended hand of the narrator a ten-dollar gold piece. 'Give that,' he said, 'to the widow; it will comfort her in the approaching extremity.'
"Some years since he had an attack of cholera. The symptoms were so severe and persistent as to alarm him somewhat, and induce him to make his will. In this will he stipulated specially for the release of all the poor whose names were found upon his books, urging it per- emptorily as his desire, in addition, 'that no one shall be pressed for claims against them for service rendered their families by me.'
" A few hours before his death, in the enjoyment of an unclouded intellect, he dictated his final will. Among its provisions is found one for the relief of an individual in Pennsylvania. The circumstances of this bequest he stated as follows: 'Some years since I rented my farm to a man with whom, on settlement, a contest arose as to some portion of the rent. Each claiming to be right, the matter was left unadjusted. The man having moved away, wrote to me to do with the matter as I chose. Assured that I was right in the premises, I never answered his letter. This man has since died and I learn that the widow is poor. To her I desire my executor to pay, three hundred dollars, an amount quite sufficient to cover the entire sum in dispute.' In this will he also be- queathed two thousand dollars to the poor of the city. Among his last words to his excellent wife, to whom he left the execution of these be- quests, were these : 'You must not forget the poor.'
" In this pharisaic age it is indeed refreshing to find an instance of unobtrusive charity which shall tell of the exercise of that noble virtue without public demonstration. It is, therefore, more than gratifying to be able to present, in the subject of this sketch, one at least who, though by no means distinguished for benevolent acts, so loved mercy as to il- lustrate his life by many of the most striking and beautiful exhibitions of that eminent virtue. He was a model friend. He saw the real char- acter of all whom he admitted to his intimacy and while to all the out- side world he faithfully hid their faults, he candidly and fully presented them to him whose character they marred. This duty, the highest and most delicate and difficult of all the duties of friendship and of life,
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owed by man to man, he had the good sense, discrimination and tact to perform always without insulting or wounding his friends. He was su- perior to all dissimulation, and spoke the truth with such frankness and earnestness that it was impossible to take offense at it. His friendships all stood upon a higher plain than any mere selfish interest. He ac- cepted or rejected men as friends for their manhood or want of it. The personal or social trappings and circumstances of men neither attracted nor repelled him. He felt and knew that
' The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that,'
And elected his friends, not for the image and superscription which family or position had impressed upon them, but for the original metal. So selected, he grappled them with hooks of steel, and never gave them up until they had shown by some violation of principle that they were unworthy of his regard. He discriminated wisely the faults that pro- ceeded from impulse and enthusiasm, from those that grew out of cal- culation and self-interest. To the former he was as kind and forgiving as a mother to the faults of her child. The latter he never forgave.
"For a short time he engaged in politics; not, however, as a matter of choice, but from a sense of duty. He carried with him into the politi- cal arena the same thorough and exhaustive preparation, the same scrupulous regard for truth and fair-dealing, the same severe devotion to reason, and the same lofty and fiery eloquence that lent such a charm to his professional addresses. It is almost needless to say that in this episode of his life he met the obligations of his position and performed them so as to win the confidence and approbation of his constituents.
" Dr. Bobbs was a man of the highest and coolest courage. Noth- ing could daunt him. During the first campaigns in West Virginia, he accompanied the command of General Morris, and on one occasion, while the army was engaged in irregular skirmishing with the enemy in the woods that lay between the lines at Laurel Hill, he accompanied the skirmishers to the front. There being no regular line maintained on either side, every man acted pretty much upon the suggestion of his own inclination. In this way one of our young men got far in advance of the rest, and, thus isolated, was fatally shot by one of the enemy. His screams when struck created a momentary panic in those who were nearest him, and they all started on a precipitate retreat. Dr. Bobbs was near and promptly stopped the retreat; led the party to the spot
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DR. JOHN STOUGH BOBBS.
whence the screams had come, and brought off the remains of the young man, who was found quite dead. Throughout the entire affair he bore himself as a veteran, and won the admiration of the entire party which he led to the rescue.
" He was a man of indefatigable industry, Up to the period of his death he was a devoted student, laboring at his books as few men work. With a slender constitution at best, and a system worn down by dis- ease contracted in the army, he labored incessantly. His days were given to the duties of an arduous surgical practice, his nights spent al- most wholly in his library. I am assured by his wife that the arsenal's morning gun very frequently summoned him to the few hours of repose allowed himself.
" Nothing daunted by his enfeebled health, he did not hesitate to enter with his usual spirit into the project of a new medical school in this city, giving to the enterprise the prestige of his high reputation, and to the faculty the aid of his distinguished ability as a teacher.
"The very able and conclusive manner in which in his inaugural address before this society three years ago, he combatted the argu- ment directed against the establishment in this State of a journal and a school in the interest of medical progress, and the very liberal bequest to the college his efforts had contributed so largely to found, are among the numerous proofs he has left behind of his loyalty to legit- imate medicine and earnest zeal in the cause of a science he so much loved, and to the advancement of which he had devoted his short but active and useful life.
"We are not assured, from evidence presented, that the doctor had any formally avowed religious belief. In his last moments he bore wit- ness, however, to a belief in the great fundamentals of our being-God, duty and immortality. 'The final scene,' writes Dr. Gordon, 'as you know, was a glorious sunset, closing a day of brightness and beauty.'
"He went unterrified into the gulf of death, repeating in my pres- ence and the hearing of other friends, 'I know that I am about to die. God has always dealt kindly with me, and I am sure he will do so still. I entertain no fears for the future.' Resting confidently on that assur- ance he fell peacefully asleep.
"Such, gentlemen, was the life, and so died at an immature age, and in the midst of usefulness, one of Indiana's greatest and best men."
I can not close this sketch without paying a tribute to his kind and charitable widow, whose name, like that of her late husband, will long be remembered by the poor of this city, as she has ever taken a great
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interest in all benevolent institutions, and given freely of her means. The name of Mrs. Catharine Bobbs will live long after the grass has grown green over her grave. Mrs. Bobbs is a sister of the Hon. Simon Cameron, many years a member of the United States Senate from Penn- sylvania, and President Lincoln's Secretary of War.
OLIVER JOHNSON.
There were two well-known old citizens of Marion county, known by the name of Oliver Johnson, one of whom is dead. The one of whom I write is yet living on his farm, five miles north of the city, on the "Sugar Flat " turnpike. He is the eldest son of the late John Johnson, who lived in the immediate neighborhood of where his son now lives.
Oliver Johnson was born in Franklin county, Indiana, in 1821, and when but a child came to this county, and was raised within two miles of where he now resides. He was married in 1843, by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, to Miss Parmelia Howland, daughter of the venerable Powell Howland. Mr. Johnson's eldest daughter is the wife of William A. Lowe. The farmer's life being the most independent, their children seem to inherit it.
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