USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana : a review of two centuries of occupation of the region about the head of the Maumee River, Vol. II > Part 5
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Charles S. Bash .- Measured by its rectitude, its productiveness, its pervading altruism and its material success, the life of the late Charles S. Bash, of Fort Wayne, counted for much, and in this history of the city and county in which he passed the major part of his life and to whose civic and material progress he contributed in large measure, it is most consistent that a review of his career and a tribute to his memory be incorporated. His influence extended in many directions, his broad business activities inured to the commercial prestige of Fort Wayne, and his insistent civic loyalty and progressiveness were not a matter of mere sentiment but of constructive achievement. He marked by distinctive personal accomplishment a place of his own in connection with economic, industrial and social affairs of Allen county, where his name and memory shall be held in lasting honor. Mr. Bash was born at Roanoke, Hunting- ton county, Indiana, July 28, 1853, and at his home in Fort Wayne, he rested from his labors and passed to the life eternal on the 24th of Septem- ber, 1916, after an illness of several months' duration. Of his attitude in the closing days of his earnest and prolific life the following pertinent statement has been written: "His indomitable courage and his deter- mined refusal to submit to the domination of physical ills were such that until two weeks prior to his death his condition was not thought to be serious." In the year following that of his birth the parents of Mr. Bash removed to Fort Wayne, and here he passed the residue of his life. Here he continued his studies in the public schools until he had duly profited by the advantages of the high school, and soon afterward he became associated with the firm of S. Bash & Company, which was well established in the seed and produce commission business and of which his father, Solo- mon Bash, was the executive head. This firm was founded in 1868, the in- terested principals in establishing the business being Solomon Bash, P. D. Smyser, and P. L. McKee. Solomon Bash was long known and honored as one of the representative business men and influential citizens of Fort Wayne and he became president of the commission house of S. Bash & Company after the same was incorporated under the laws of Indiana. Of this office he continued the incumbent until his death, which occurred in 1914. His son, Charles S., subject of this memoir, then assumed control of the extensive and well ordered commission business, of which he
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became the sole owner, the other members of the company having retired. His intimate and prolonged association with the business thus established in the early days gave to him the strongest of reinforcement in carrying forward the important industrial and commercial enterprise, and in this connection the following estimate is worthy of perpetuation: "Having entered the employ of his father when a young man, he had practically grown up with the business, and his knowledge in this line was so broad and accurate that he was justly considered an authority and that his advice was often solicited and as frequently valued. Few men had a wider or more general acquaintanceship throughout northern Indiana than did Mr. Bash, the nature of his business bringing him into specially close touch with the representative agriculturists in this favored portion of the Hoosier state." A man of splendid force and much reserve energy, Mr. Bash did not limit his activities to the seed and produce business, and his interests became many and varied in connection with commercial, industrial and semi-public enterprises, the while he was known as one of Fort Wayne's most alert, progressive and loyal citizens. Mr. Bash was one of the organizers and incorporators of the Salamoni Mining & Gas Company, and this became one of the most important concerns with which he had constructive alliance. It was essentially due to the zealous and well ordered efforts of Mr. Bash that natural gas was first brought into Fort Wayne, and it was in his home that the first natural gas piped into the city was burned. In that pioneer period of the development of the natural gas industry in northern Indiana, in 1890, the introduction of the gas in Fort Wayne was an event of importance, and many persons assembled to witness the result of the experiment when Mr. Bash lighted the first flame. He had the circumspection and initiative that make for self-confidence, and he was ever ready to support his confidence in con- crete action, so that it was characteristic of the man when he became the prime mover in the organization of the natural gas company and the subse- quent exploitation and development of the gas resources of this part of the state. In this field was given one evidence of his progressiveness and ready grasping of opportunity, and it is a matter of record that later appreciable financial returns came from the development of the natural gas business throughout the eastern and central parts of Indiana. Mr. Bash was one of the organizers and original stockholders of the Home Telephone & Telegraph Company, and was characteristically resourceful and influential in the upbuilding of its excellent system of service. He was likewise one of the incorporators of the Wayne Knitting Mills and gave to the incipient enterprise the valuable aid that resulted in its devel- opment from modest proportions to an important status as one of the leading concerns of its kind in the United States. Mr. Bash established the first fertilizing plant in this section of Indiana, and was for some time a director of the Hamilton National Bank and of the Fort Wayne Electric Works. His judgment was always assured in connection with business affairs and he was always ready to back this judgment by financial co- operation and personal effort in the support of enterprises that tended to advance the general welfare. There were few public enterprises in Fort Wayne in which he did not figure prominently and effectively. Concerning one of the most important undertakings that received his earnest and thoughtful advocacy the following statements have been made: "Just as he caught the vision of what the gas and telephone in- dustries might mean to the commonwealth, so he felt and realized the
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possibilities and value of a barge canal through Fort Wayne. He was one of the pioneer boosters and hardest workers for the so-called Toledo, Fort Wayne & Chicago canal. For years he was a member of the board of directors of the Erie & Michigan Deep Waterways Association, and in December, 1915, he was an influential delegate to the national rivers and harbors congress. In the furtherance of the construction of the canal he made a number of promotive trips with the late Hon. Perry A. Randall and delivered forceful speeches in favor of the project. It was one of his fondest hopes that he might see Lake Erie and Lake Michigan connected with Fort Wayne by a barge canal. He was confident of the ultimate construction of such a waterway. Having been for many years engaged in the shipping business, he could fully gauge the benefits to be derived from such transportation facilities, and he gave unsparingly of his time and money in forwarding the movement." As a broad-minded and public- spirited citizen, Mr. Bash was strongly fortified in his convictions concern- ing governmental and economic matters and was aligned as a stalwart supporter of the principles of the Republican party. His civic loyalty was clearly shown by the effective service he gave as a member of the munici- pal board of public works, during the administration of Mayor Oakley, and by his several years' membership on the board of education. His deep interest in the cause of the Republican party became specially notice- able during the national campaigns of 1896 and 1900, when he became associated with Dr. A. E. Bulson, Jr., E. F. Yarnelle, and A. T. Lukens, in forming the "Big Four Quartet," an organization that traveled exten- sively through this section of the country during each of these campaigns and sang stirring songs in the Republican meetings held to further the cause of President McKinley and that of the party in general. Mr. Bash was a zealous member and supporter of Westminster Presbyterian church, in which his widow retains active membership, and such were his charac- ter and services that he signally honored the city in which he spent virtually his entire life and in which the community manifested a sense of personal loss and sorrow when he was summoned from the stage of his mortal endeavors. In April, 1882, was solmenized the marriage of Mr. Bash to Miss Flora E. Orr, who survives him, as do also nine children- Charles S., Jr., Joseph W. and Howard O., all of whom are identified with business affairs in Fort Wayne; Hester, who is the wife of Miles F. Porter, Jr., of this city; Virginia, who is the wife of Hale Bradley, of Huntington, Indiana; Clara, who is the wife of Arthur Schreck, of Fort Wayne; and Misses Lucy, Julia and Marian, who remain with their widowed mother in the beautiful family home in Fort Wayne.
John H. Bass-The name of John H. Bass is inseparably connected, in a most enviable way, with the financial and industrial life of Fort Wayne and the middle west during a period of more than sixty years. The activities of Mr. Bass in his home city date from the year 1852 when, at the age of seventeen, he inaugurated that vigorous, intelligent business career which has raised him to the pinnacle of success and placed his name among the captains of industry. Fort Wayne takes just pride in Mr. Bass as one of her foremost, substantial, progressive citizens. The monster plant of the Bass Foundry & Machine Company, spreading its departments over an area of more than five city squares in length will ever stand as a monument to his genius and ability-for Mr. Bass, unlike many another man similarly situated, has been careful to keep his hands and his mind closely upon the developing business which has grown to
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such large proportions and has refrained from delegating the care of his larger affairs to others. The Bass Foundry & Machine Company had its inception in 1853, when it was organized as Jones, Bass & Company. John II. Bass came to Fort Wayne in the preceding year from Salem, Livingston county, Kentucky, where he was born, November 9, 1835. Mr. Bass is descended from early families of Virginia and the Carolinas prominently identified with the colonial history of the nation. The grandfather of John H. Bass on the side of the father was Jordan Bass, born in Virginia in 1764, from which state he moved to Christian county. Kentucky, in 1805, in the midst of the troublous conditions which pre- ceded the war of 1812, in which Kentucky and Indiana took such a prominent part. He died in 1853 at the age of eighty-nine years. Sion Bass, father of John H. Bass, was born in Virginia, November 7, 1802. From the age of three, he was a resident of Kentucky and rose to prom- inence in the conduct of commercial affairs and the owner and cultivator of large areas of farm land. The wife of Sion Bass was Miss Jane Todd, born in Charleston, South Carolina, June 19, 1802, the daughter of John Todd, also a pioneer settler of Kentucky. Sion Bass and wife remained in Kentucky until 1866, when they came to Fort Wayne and spent their closing days with their son, John H. Bass. The mother died August 26, 1874, and the father August 7, 1888. They were the parents of six children, four of whom attained to maturity. John H. Bass is the only surviving member of the family. In this connection it would seem en- tirely proper to refer briefly to the services and military record of Colonel Sion S. Bass, elder brother of John H. Bass, whose name is held in tender remembrance by the veterans of the Civil war and who have named one of the local posts of the Grand Army of the Republic in his honor. Sion S. Bass, who was born in Kentucky in January, 1827, came to Fort Wayne in 1848, as the first representative of the family to settle in In- diana. To his honor it may be said that he represented the type of pioneer manufacturer who laid the foundation for much of the active development in many lines of endeavor. As a member of the firm of Jones, Bass & Company, which was succeeded by the Fort Wayne Machine Works, he became indirectly one of the founders of the Bass Foundry & Machine Works, which was sold to the Pennsylvania railway for shop purposes and other industries which have resulted from the parent institution. Lincoln's call for volunteers in 1861 appealed to him so strongly that he gave up, with temporary intent, the conduet of his affairs in order to give his services to his country. His first service was in giving assistance to the formation of the famous Thirtieth Indiana volunteers of which he was made colonel. This regiment took an active part in the maneuvers which led up to the battle of Shiloh. Early on the second day of that battle, the regiment, without time to rest from an arduous march to the field, was ordered to advance. Amid a deadly fire, the regiment pushed forward, led by Colonel Bass, who fell with a mortal wound. Many others fell in that fearful advance at Shiloh. The comrades of Colonel Bass, after a brief memorial service, sent the body back to Fort Wayne, where a city already in mourning for many others who sacrifieed their lives in that immortal battle, bowed in deeper grief over the fallen leader of the_gallant Thirtieth. John H. Bass attended the schools of his native county in Kentucky, and there gave evidence of a strong adaptability for the lines of study which later developed in the modern type of business man. For a time he enjoyed the instruction of a private tutor. He was seventeen years of age when he came to Fort
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Wayne, in 1852, to begin his actual commercial carcer. For a time he was employed in a grocery store, and then served as a bookkeeper for the contracting firm of Samuel and William S. Edsall. Then he joined his brother, Sion S. Bass, as an employe of Jones, Bass & Company, where he served as bookkeeper from 1854 until 1857, when the firm dissolved partnership. During these years, Mr. Bass had, by studying at night, perfected himself as an accountant. In 1857, when investments in Iowa lands proved an attractive venture, he went west and spent $3,700 in the choicest farm lands he could find. He remained two years, watching carefully the real estate conditions, and returned with $15,000 in cash and the deeds to real estate worth $50,000. The close application to the study of business methods fitted him, by the year 1859, to employ his capital, in company with that of Edward L. Force, in the establishment of Bass & Force. The aggregate output of the concern during the first twelve months reached $20,000. This plant stood on the site of the present Pennsylvania railway shops and became the nucleus of this great industrial department of that system. The example of Mr. Bass in ven- turing the investment of his money in manufacturing enterprises at that time was a great incentive to others to do likewise, with the result that Fort Wayne early became famed as a manufacturing center. Between the years 1860 and 1863 the business was owned and conducted by Mr. Bass and Judge Samuel Hanna. In 1863 Judge Hanna transferred his interests to his son, Horace Hanna, whose death occurred six years later. At that time Mr. Bass purchased the stock held by the Hannas and has since been the sole owner of the business and, under his sole management, it has had a wonderful prosperity. Employment has been given to thou- sands down through the years, and many of Fort Wayne's substantial citizens have been drawn and held there through their connection with the Bass Foundry & Machine Works. In 1898 the company was in- corporated with a capital of $1,500,000, which was later increased to $2,200,000. This corporation owns and operates a branch plant at Rock Run, Alabama, which mines and smelts a large part of the ore used in the products of the Fort Wayne plant. The fine grade of pig iron which is made into car wheels comes largely from the affiliated Alabama con- cern. From time to time larger and better buildings have been added to the Fort Wayne plant. An average of 2,500 men are employed here, with an annual payroll (1917) of $1,500,000. The tonnage of manufactured material shipped from the two plants aggregates 300,000 tons annually. The chief products of the Fort Wayne plant are car wheels, axles, iron and steel forgings, Corliss engines, boilers, complete power plants and gray iron castings. The product of the Rock Run plant is high grade furnace pig iron. The Fort Wayne plant covers an area of twenty acres. Twenty-five thousand acres of land are included in the Rock Run mining district owned by the company. Raw material from which the Fort Wayne plant produces its finished products is shipped to the city by the train load. The many departments of the business are operated "like clockwork" and the products of the Bass establishments have made a reputation for themselves and Fort Wayne all over America. After Mr. Bass established the Fort Wayne plant on a prosperous basis, he gave a portion of his attention to other lines of industry which indicate his ability in many directions. In 1869 he founded the St. Louis Car Wheel Company, at St. Louis, Missouri, in which he held a controlling interest and served as its president until he disposed of his interest in the com- pany. In 1873 Mr. Bass, despite the conditions which characterized the
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panic of the period, established an extensive iron works in the city of Chicago, a venture which suggests the qualities in the character of Mr. Bass which enables him to view the future and its possibilities with a keener understanding than that which is vouchsafed to most men of large affairs. Without that degree of daring which characterizes the plunger, but with a marked foresight and sagacity, coupled with good judgment, he recognized the possibilities of the city of Chicago and "got in on the ground floor" just as that city was beginning to recover from the effects of the destructive fire of two years before. The Chicago venture like that in St. Louis proved to be a large paying investment. In addition to the Alabama mining properties, and those already de- scribed, Mr. Bass is heavily interested in a large foundry at Lenoir, Tennessee, which is also supplied with raw material from the Alabama mines. During his many years of residence in Fort Wayne Mr. Bass has shown a broad public spirit. He was one of the owners of the original street railway system, when the horse-drawn cars were employed. The Citizens' Street Railway Company was incorporated in 1871, to operate the system. On the 22nd of August, 1887, on the foreclosure of a mortgage for $20,000 executed to Oliver P. Morgan and Edward P. Williams, the property rights and franchises were sold to Mr. Bass and Stephen B. Bond, representing the Fort Wayne Street Railway Company, which was brought into existence to acquire the property. The system then consisted of about two miles of single track on Calhoun street, from Main street to Creighton avenue, on Creighton avenue from Calhoun street to Fairfield avenue, and on Wallace street from Calhoun to Hanna streets. The cars were operated at intervals of twenty minutes. Asso- ciated with Mr. Bass and Mr. Bond in this ownership were Jesse L. Williams and Charles D. Bond. These men were the owners of large tracts of land south of the Pennsylvania tracks and east of Calhoun street, and the extension of the line served in the early development of that outlying district. This company owned the street railway lines until August, 1892, when a reorganized company converted the property into an electrically-propelled system. For many years Mr. Bass has been one of the chief stockholders of the First National Bank of Fort Wayne. During thirty years he held the office of president and resigned January 9, 1917. He is also a member of the boards of directors of the Old National Bank and of the Hamilton National Bank. The latter was merged with the First National Bank on April 7, 1917, and the institution is now known as the First and Hamilton National Bank. The beautiful suburban home of Mr. Bass-known as Brookside-is the most widely known estate in this region. In the midst of a large park of three hun- dred acres with broad areas of artificial lake, the mansion has a most beautiful setting. Here, Mr. Bass maintains a deer and buffalo park, and conducts a large dairy and stock farm. To the breeding of Clydesdale horses and Galloway cattle Mr. Bass has devoted much attention during the past quarter century. Direct importations are made from Europe. Upon this farm are to be found some of the finest specimens of live stock in the world. Exhibits at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, in 1893, and at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, in 1904, are note- worthy as receiving many first prizes. In various portions of Allen county, Mr. Bass owns fifteen thousand acres of land, while his land holdings in other parts of Indiana and in other states are extensive. He owns eighteen thousand acres of mineral land in Alabama. In the city of Fort Wayne he possesses a large number of commercial and residential
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BROOKSIDE RESIDENCE OF JOHN H BASS
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properties. So wide are his investment interests that these suggestions must suffice to indicate their aggregate valuation which may be esti- mated at between five and six millions of dollars. Mr. Bass has ever given his support to the principles of the Democratic party. In 1888 he was chosen as a delegate from Indiana to the national convention of his party and was nominated as presidential elector in that year. Mr. Bass is prominent in Masonic affairs of Indiana; he has been honored with the Thirty-Third degree of the Scottish Rite. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church. Iu 1865 Mr. Bass was united in marriage with Miss Laura H. Lightfoot, daughter of the late Judge George C. and Melinda (Holton) Lightfoot. Mrs. Bass was born in Falmouth, Ken- tucky, and resided there with her parents at the time of the marriage. Two children have been born to them, Laura Grace, wife of Dr. Gaylord M. Leslie, of Fort Wayne, and John H., whose death occurred August 7, 1891. This brief review of the active life of Mr. Bass suggests nothing of the geniality of the man which has not only surrounded him with the warmest of friends but which has enabled him to establish such a re- lationship between the executive and the productive departments of his large enterprises as to preserve the highest degree of harmony and con- sequent efficiency. To him Fort Wayne owes much of the inspiration which has lifted her to a high place among the cities of the middle west.
Conrad Bayer, one of the specially alert and progressive business men of Fort Wayne, has been a resident of this city from his early youth and by his own ability and efforts has risen to a status of prominence and influence in connection with the representative commercial activities of the Summit City. His popularity is unqualified and is indicated in his being more familiarly known as "Coony" Bayer, this pseudonym being utilized in connection with the large and important industrial enterprise which has been developed under his able direction, for he is president and treasurer of the Coony Bayer Cigar Company, which owns and con- ducts one of the largest cigar manufactories in northern Indiana. This extensive enterprise was founded by him in 1891, and operations were instituted upon a very modest scale, as in this original manufactory he gave employment to but one man, the while he himself vigorously worked also at his trade, after having served a thorough apprenticeship as a cigarmaker. Not only effective service and excellent products were necessary to effect the evolution of the extensive business now controlled by the company of which he is executive head, but also the energy, cir- cumspection and initiative and constructive ability which he was able to bring to bear. He continued business in an individual way until about 1902, when, to meet the constantly increasing demands placed upon his establishment, he effected the organization and incorporation of the present stock company, of which he has been president and treasurer from the beginning, William A. Bayer being superintendent and gen- eral manager, and Frederick Bayer the secretary of the company, which
was originally incorporated for fifteen thousand dollars.
No more
pertinent voucher for the splendid expansion of the enterprise can be found than in the fact that in 1914 the capital stock was increased to one hundred thousand dollars, the executive officers remaining the same. In connection with the business and manufacturing departments of this now large industrial and commercial enterprise an average of about seventy- five persons are employed. In 1901 the factory headquarters were established in a building erected for the purpose, at the corner of Wayne and Barr streets, but within a comparatively few years these accommo-
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