USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Some Fort Wayne phizes > Part 19
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Mr. Randall has been a director in the Commercial Club since its organization, and served for one year as its president. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, Is president of the Smith & Randall Lumber Company and a director in the Tri-State Building and Loan Association.
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CRACKERS
LOUIS FOX
THERE are men by the millions who just hate parrots. Mr. Louis Fox doesn't care how many parrots there are. They all need crackers. Mr. Fox is Fort Wayne's cracker man and he is a cracker jack. Most drivers have crackers on their whips to snap over the horses, but Mr. Fox keeps his crackers and snaps in the wagon. He has something there now for Polly.
Just about half a century ago Louis Fox was born in Adams township, this county. His parents soon realized that he was not cut out for a farmer. They brought him to the city. He went through the local schools and was given a thorough commercial education after that. His first business venture was one of push. He propelled a cart in Huestis & Hamilton's wholesale grocery. in 1877 he enterred into the manufacture of crackers and confections. From 1883 until 1886 Mr. Fox conducted the factory alone. Business began to expand under his skillful management and in 1886 he took his brother August. into the firm. It was then known as the Fox Bakery and Confectionery. In 1880 there was a fire which practically wiped this factory out of existence. The factory arose out of the ashes larger and better than ever. Today the Fox crackers have a wide reputation. The plant is now a branch of the National Biscuit Com- pany of which company Mr. Fox is a heavy stockholder and a director. He has retired from the active manage- ment. He is interested in many Fort Wayne business and financial institutions, He has served with distinc- tion in the city council and has repeatedly declined the namination for mayor of Fort Wayne. He does not cherish political honors but seeks to be free to enjoy the pleasures of life. He has made several extended Euro- pean tours and trips through Mexico. He enjoys travel and when not away is frequently seen driving with his family behind a handsome team of horses.
ALFRED D. CRESSLER
H ERE is the beginning of all the trouble, The scene is laid in the foundry department of the Kerr- Murray Manufacturing Company. The principal actor 15 Mr. A. D. Cressler. He is detected in the act of pouring molten iron into a mould. When cooled and shaken out of black sand a queer-shaped piece ot steam- ing cast iron will be found. This is taken to the machine shop, run through the lathes and polishing apparatus and when finished is assembled with a lot of other pieces of cast and wrought iron to form a gas-making machine. This is then sold to somebody who is putting in a city gas plant. In the course of time the homes and shops are piped, meters put in and the gas turned on. The man comes to read the meter, and then the consumer runs up against the proverbially fatal gas bill.
But, as we remarked before, the trouble begins away back at the scene of the sketch. However, as none of the complaints reach this source. Mr. Cressler keeps happy.
Mr. Cressler is the president of the Kerr-Murray Manufacturing Company, one of the city's largest and most important factories. It's product is contined to machinery used in the manufacture and storage of illum- inating gas.
Mr. Cressler is a native ot Lucas, Ohio. His father, George H Cressler was a railroad contractor. Alfred D. Cressler came to Fort Wayne in 1870 and entered the employ of the Kerr-Murray Manufacturing Company shortly afterward. In 1881, on the incorporation of the company he was made its president. Under his admin- istration, the policy of the company has been essentially conservative, following the original plans of its founder. Kerr Murray.
Mr. Cressler is a great lover of tine driving horses. He is also fond of rare books and Ins library contains hundreds of priceless volumes. He is one of Fort Wayne's valuable citizens.
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HIV
JOKES '
PERSONAL
1
1
( POLITICAL
* DRAMATIC
COLA
...
UPOR TO
POLICE COURT
JOHN T. DOUGALL
THE true artist admires curved lines, and in the case of Mr. Dougall we don't get as many of them in this picture as there would have been in the full front view. His figure is artistic in the extreme-that ts. in the nether extremity. Those who were there deny that the lower limbs of our subject were warped while he passed over the burning sands enroute to the Mystic Shrine. Others believe the condition is the result of turning corners too suddenly while chasing the elusive news item. However, while the origin is a matter of dispute, the tact remains that Mr. Dougall has never won honors at a greased pig catching contest. He knows better than to try it.
John was born at New Haven and was seven years old when he was brought to Fort Wayne to stay. He was a member of the high school class of 1884 and after graduating, attended a business college While in school, he conducted the society department of the Fort Wayne Gazette over the nom de plume of "Jenness Dee." His work attracted attention and he became connected with the Gazette as telegraph editor in 1884 In 1887, after a year's connection with Carnahan, Hanna & Company, he went to the News, and has been with that paper con- tinuously, excepting two years spent with the Journal. Mr. Dougall as city editor of the Daily News is a hustler. He is an entertaining writer and has the reputation of being able to cover as much news territory daily as any other man in Indiana. Everybody hkes him.
His ability as an after-dinner speaker has made him popular at the banquets of the Masonic bodies and others. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Mystic Shriner. and is a member of the lodge of Elks and ol the "Keep Happy" club. He is a wide-awake Republican. He was the first president of the Tippecanoe club and issued the call for the meeting at which it was organized.
JOHN B. REUSS
U P in the northwestern part of Bavaria, in Germany. is the pretty little town of Kissingen, made famous chiefly through its medicinal springs which bubble up in sparkling profusion from nature's laboratory for the pur- pose of curing various human ills. Here it was that Mr. Reuss, who is now connected with another laboratory winch also produces a protusion of sparkling hquids, was born.
In 1865, just at the close of the American Rebellion. Mr. Reuss came to the United States, and located in Cincinnati. Here be found employment at his trade as an expert watchmaker : he had learned the business be- fore leaving his native land. In 1874, he came to Fort Wayne and entered the employ of George J. E. Mayer. then one of Fort Wayne's leading business men. He was with him for several years, when. in 1891. he be- came interested in the Centlivre Brewing Company. Upon the incorporation of that concern in 1895, he was made its secretary. Much of the success of the enter- prise is due to the effort ol Mr. Reuss, whose wide ac- quantance has been an important factor. During his long residence in Fort Wayne. Mr. Reuss has had much to do with the development of the city's various inter- ests. His prominence commercially is best illustrated by mentioning his membership in such enterprises as the Hamilton National Bank, the Home Telephone Company, the Fort Wayne Trust Company, the Haberkorn Engine Company, the Commercial Land and Improvement Com- puny and a number of other important institutions.
Mr. Reuss has traveled extensively, and there are very few points of interest in the civilzed portions of the globe that have not been visited by him. He is an en- thusiastic member of the Fort Wayne Lodge of Elks, and is une of the oldest members of that lively bunch. Mr. Reuss' tad is floriculture. Here we see him among his favorite flowers.
F
NVL
HOPS
WILLIAM KAOUGH
C LD KING COLE was a merry old soul. All of the children know that. Now Wilham Kaough, the Coal King of Fort Wayne, is also merry. Every one who has had the pleasure of coming in contact with him knows that. Although he was born in Allen county sixty years ago and is still a bachelor, he has a tender heart and his kindly offices have frequently been felt. He never forgets a friend. He has within the past few years gone on the bonds of men when their closest friends had failed in time of need.
** Billy ** Kaough (everybody knows him as " Billy,"'> stayed on the farm until 1872 before he dared to become city broke. He has never been broke at that. He started in the agricultural implement business when farmers were almost afraid of the "infernal" machines. He was agent for S. S. Smick. the firm of Shordan & Swan, and later started in the agricultural implement business for himself. He made friends all over Allen county. and owing to his popularity was three times made county chairman of the Democratic party. He was made district chairman for his party in the successful Cleveland campaign. For his excellent work he was appointed postmaster for Fort Wayne. He managed the affairs of the office with business tact. Then he removed his political crown and resumed the habiliments of a coal baron. Since then the Kaough Coal Company has been an important business enterprise in Fort Wayne. While posing as a coal baron his coal yards have never been barren. As seen by the snap shot ut hun he picks out good coal. His black diamonds shine on the Kaough coal wagons. They are red hot stuff in a furnace or a grate, and are best Served when the mercury is shrinking into its smallest proportions,
SAMUEL M. HENCH
J UDGE HENCH is here displayed in the proper pose- that of a public speaker-for as such he is familiar- ly known to the people of Allen County. As a lawyer in the courts, as a speaker during the political campaigns, and as an orator on varied public occasions, they have otten heard his voice. And his aluhties have won him honors. He has been prosecuting attorney of the coun- ty, judge of the county criminal and the superior courts, chief of the law division in the government treasury department at Washington, representative in the Indiana legislature, and for years one of the leading attorneys at the bar in this city.
During the first year of the war of the Rebellion. Judge Hench was a student at Airy View Academy in Pennsylvania, near his home, Port Royal, in Jumata county. While under the age of sixteen years he left school and entered the army, enlisting early in the year of 1862 in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Pennsyl- vama volunteers. In December of that year, at the bat- tle of Fredricksburg, he was seriously wounded. With his regiment he was mustered out of service in 18h3. In September of that year he came to Fort Wayne and worked on a farm near the city until 1864, when he re- enlisted in the Eighty-third Indiana and served until the close of the war, coming afterwards to Fort Wayne.
With the view of entering the law as a profession. he then began efforts to complete his education, attend- ing commercial school and taking private instruction, paying his way by teaching school during the winter months. He was admitted to the bar in 1869 at Council Bluffs, lowa, and returning to Fort Wayne in 1872 he began practice here. This has since been his home. Judge Hench is recognized as one of the ablest criminal lawyers in the state.
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CHARLES C. F. NIESCHANG
No. Kind reader, thuis gentleman is not a taxidermist. And no, alas, the bird is neither an owl, a pea- cock. a woodpecker nor a flamingo. It is an eagle-a bird of prey. The parrot prays so you can hear it, but the eagle does his preying without saying a word, But to return to the man. A taxidermist preserves things that are dead, This man preserves things that are alive and tries huis level best to keep them in the land of the living. He is a doctor-to be more explicit, he is Doctor Charles Christopher Francis Nieschang. (The second and third sections as given are mere guess-work on our part, but it is the best we can do in the absence of fuller information.) Doctor Nieschang is one of the hvely charter members of the local eynie of Eagles: hence the sketch. He's a royal good fellow and popular every- where.
This book contains the stories of many Fort Wayne men who were born in foreign lands and were brought to America in their youth. In the case of Doctor Nieschang the order was reversed. He was born in Detroit, Michi- gan, and while yet a small child his mother took him to Europe, where, in France and Switzerland, he received an important part of his schooling. When he was thir- teen the family returned to America and settled in Cleve- land, Ohio. On deciding to become a physician he studied in the medical colleges of Pittsburg. New York, Chicago and Fort Wayne. He began the practice of his profession here in 1882. Doctor Nieschang is the inventor of several standard electrical instruments used in the practice of medicine and surgery .
Before he became so busy that he hasn't the time to devote to their care, Doctor Nieschang's fad was the possession of fine horses. As reminders of those days his walls display the pictures of some of his old favorites.
SAMUEL A. KARN
THE slang expression. "That's a horse on you." is usually spoken in connection with some joke or other unimportant matter: but it was different in the case of Mr. Karn. Once, there was "a horse on him. " and it was certainly a most serious affair-important enough to change the entire course of his life. It happened when he was eighteen, Through a youth of out-door activity. Mr. Karn had grown to a strong. health sample of physical young manhood, but one day while preparing to drive to the school he was teaching. his horse shipped and fell, crushing Mr. Kain beneath the weight of its body. When recovered it was found he had been badly injured, and for a long time his death seemed certaun. His recovery was so slow that all his plans for the future were revised. While walking for his health one day he heard the notes of a piano. He followed them up and found a man who wanted to engage him as a salesman. From thence forward he gave his attention to musical matters, not only as a salesman of pianos and organs but as an instructor in vocal music. He came to Fort Wayne in 1883 and engaged in business. He has always carried a high- grade of instruments. and one of these. the Karn piano. manufactured for him by the Krell-French Piano Com- pany. of Newcastle, Indiana, and built after Mr. Karn's especial idea of what constitutes a perfect instrument. is a splendid product of the art of piano making.
Mr. Karn is a Buckeye, born at Milford. His father was a Dunkard preacher and brought his family tu Delaware county, Indiana. in 1865. They cut a place m the forest fur their home fronting on the Mississinewa river. and there lived for many years. Mr. Karn attended the Jonesboro schools and later taught in Delaware county.
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CAPTAIN
WILLIAM F. BORGMAN
H ERE we see a policeman stopping a team of horses. The picture isn't wide enough to show the horses. Perhaps you wonder why the officer doesn't look excited while performing such a deed. The solution is simple: The officer is Captain William F. Borgman, and the team referred to is attached to one of the trucks of the Brown Trucking Company. The team isn't running away-on the contrary it is walking slowly along the highway. Why, then, is the policeman stopping the horses? Simply because Captain Borgman is the president of the Brown Trucking Company and he has merely asked the driver to hesitate for a moment while he tells him to he careful not to work too hard. So you see a pohceman though he may appear to have a stern, stony exterior. can possess a warm heart and the tenderest sympathy.
Captain Borgman is one of the most popular officers that ever donned a policeman's uniform. When he started in as a patrolman in 1890, he made up his mind that he would always he found where he was most wanted, and he has stuck to that idea ever since. That old joke about a policeman's umform being the synonym for "invisible blue" has never been applied to him. Captain Borgman's father was a policeman as early as 1869, Su he might be described as having been born in the Service He's a policeman because he likes to be. Twice he tried to quit, even after he had risen to the position of captain, but he got lonesome and went hack.
The captain is a native of Fort Wayne. His first home was a stone structure standing on the bank of the canal. The building is still there, but the canal first flowed away, and now has flown away. At any rate. it's gone. The elder Borgman was a boatman on the canal before enlisting in the city police force.
HUBERT BERGHOFF
1 T is our humble opinion that a new order of things ought to prevail. For instance, eggs should be sold by weight and not by the dozen, because in some dozens there's twice as much raw breakfast material as there is m some other dozens. Just so, a small man ought not to pay as much railroad or car fare as a big man. In fact, we think Hubert Berghoff vught to be considered as two men because he's twice as big as the ordinary man. The people who publish the city directory seem to agree with us, as his name appears twice on page 130 of the latest edition, and it isn't an error either. See if you don't hind it so. We don't expect the populace to rush madly to our support in this honest expression of belief. but we feel better now that we have expressed it and gotten it out of our system.
Mr. Berghoff is the vice-president and manager of the Berghoff Brewing Company. He was born in Dort- mund, Germany, and there attended the common schools, following with a course in the industrial schools of the town.
His brothers, Herman and Henry, had previously gone to America, and their letters finally caused Hubert to believe that there was more to work fur on this side of the Atlantic. He was seventeen years old when. In 1880, he set his toot Squarely on American soil. He came to fort Wayne just as fast as the transportation lines could get him here, and ever since then he has stayed fast. You couldn't drive him out if you tried. He was first employed in the wholesale grocery house of A. C. Trentman. In 1889, with his brothers, he tormed the Berghoff Brewing Company which has proven a paying venture.
PRETZA
WADASH
140
JOSEPH A. SULLIVAN
T "HE importance of Fort Wayne as a manufacturing and jobbing center makes the freight branch of the railroad business here an immense affair. Hundreds of thousands of tons of freight pass into and out of Fort Wayne every week and the matter of systematizing the handling of this vast work falls heavily on each of the roads entering this city. But here is Mr. Sullivan who has charge of the freight departments of two important roads-the Wabash and the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton-and he seems to perform his heavy duties as easily as falling off a log. We always find him good- natured and never too much occupied to give at least a pleasant "howdy" to everybody.
Although a youngster as compared with many of the important railroad men of Fort Wayne. Mr. Sullivan has been in the employ of the Wabash road nearly twenty years.
He was born on the spot around which the town of Rich Valley. in Wabash county, has since grown. He always liked to watch the trains come in, and one day he boarded a Wabash-bound freight and on arriving in the metropolis asked for a job. It came. after he had taken a series of years ot study in the Wabash schools. In 1885. he entered the employ of the Wabash as a clerk. They liked him so well he was soon promoted to a position at Toledo, where he developed so satisfactorily that he was returned to Wabash in 1800 as the agent ut the company. He was promoted to the important position of freight agent of the company in Fort Wayne in 1900. The acquisition of new lines, the building of the Butler branch of the Wabash, and the natural growth ot the business has greatly increased the responsibility ut Mr. Sullivan's work since he came here four years .go.
ASAHEL S. COVERDALE
THEY say there's very httle proht in sugar for the retail dealer. and yet we see he e that Mr. Cover- dale smiles as happily when he sells only a little order of saccharine crystals as he would it the order included a wagon load of the things on which there is the greatest profit. And he isn't in business solely lor his health, either. He smiles for his health, though. It's a great cure for almost anything from the blues to an epidemic of mosquitoes.
Mr. Coverdale is the senior member of the grocery firm of Coverdale & Archer, one of the city's important retail houses. He spent the first twenty-eight years of his life in farming: that is, of course. after he was old enough to commence by hunting eggs in the haylott. There's where a farmer boy's education always begins. After that, the hard labor comes on so gradually that he doesn't notice it, and when he reaches maturity he has a physique which excites the envy of the city buys. After he had worked on the home farm for several years, Mr. Coverdale taught school and accumulated enough to enable him to rent a farm. Later he purchased land and began business for himself. Then in 1882. he brought his physique to Fort Wayne. He opened his grocery business in the location which he still occupies, having been there continuously for twenty-three years excepting at one time when illness made it necessary to ease up for awhile. During his residence here. Mr. Coverdale has taken a lively interest in everything pertaining to the city's welfare. He is interested in the Commercial club, the Fort Wayne Iron and Steel Company, the Logansport and the South Bend telephone systems. the Tri-State Trust Company, the Fort Wayne Trust Com- pany, the Commercial Land and Improvement Company and many other concerns. He has acted almost continu- ously for ten years as superintendent of the Wayne Street Methodist Sunday School.
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CHARLES A. ASTERLIN
THE first love and the only love, in a business way. of Mr. C. A. Asterlin, was and has been the Nickel Plate Railroad. He has obeyed the orders of no other boss, yielded service to no other employer. Since he was 18 years of age he has been in its continuous service, and when it is stated that he was born at Monroeville, Ohio, during the last month of 1869, the length of time he has been with the company and his age at the present time will not be difficult to compute.
Immediately after leaving the public schools at Belle- vue. Ohio, to which place he went with his parents when he was a toddling infant. he took employment with the Nickel Plate in his home town as baggage smasher. He "smashed" trunks so adeptly that the company soon made him a caller of the tram crews at Bellevue and afterwards clerk in the yards. All these promotions came to him within a year. Then he went into the freight office as a clerk and before he was twenty-four years of age, May 28, 1803. he was ap- pointed ticket agent for the company at Bellevue, his commission coming to him on the day the Nickel Plate opened through service to Boston and New York.
Five years afterward, on November 8, 1898, he was appointed traveling passenger agent for the company and he came to Fort Wayne, this city being the location of his offices and headquarters. His jurisdiction is over the company's lines from Chicago to Cleveland. In every instance promotion came to him unsolicited. He went up the ladder on merit rounds. Efficient, energetic. always courteous in official duties, Mr. Asterhn makes friends and retains them. Although this city has been his home but a few years, he is well known. He is a Mason and a member of the Commercial Club,
DANIEL F. HAUSS
F OR nearly a score of years, Mr. Hauss has been making it warm for the people of Fort Wayne. He installs hot water heating plants, does steam fitting and otherwise helps to drive the cold from the interior of our homes and offices and shops.
And, too, he's the man who introduced the ordinance in the city council which makes it warm for the coal man who doesn't deliver two thousand pounds when a ton is ordered, and thus he helps to make it warmer for the purchaser in proportion to the amount of money expended. This ordinance provides that the driver of the coal wagon shall meander back to the scales and weigh his load if you insist on it. It it is short, the dealer not only has to fill out the load to its proper proportions, but must stand the cost of weighing and lost time, while, if the original load is of full weight the purchaser must pay the costs. Quite a sensible idea. don't you think? Mr. Hauss picked up this idea, no doubt, while discussing the heating problem with his customers.
Mr. Hauss has always been a resident of Fort Wayne and is one of the city's successful business men. That he is not a prophet without honor in his own country was shown when his neighbors of the Fourth ward selected him to represent them in the city council. It was a Republican year, too. He is a life- lung Democrat, and was chosen in the spring of 1903 as a member of that body.
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