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 51
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YORK HEPARY
1
, LENOĊ½ FOUNDATION
Sidney C. Lumbard
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affairs of the city, county, district and state. As the chairman of the Democratic central committee of the Twelfth Congressional District, he is one of the most valued members of the state central committee of his party. Mr. Luecke is a member of the Commercial Club of Fort Wayne, and an active worker on important committees in that organization. As the first president and one of the organizers of the Fort Wayne Rotary Club, he has assisted in giving to the city one of its most valued and aggressive organizations of service. Through the medium of the Hoosier State Automobile Association, which he is serving as first vice-president, he has been enabled to carry forward much of his good roads program. In his capacity as the Allen county counsel of the Lincoln Highway Association, he has contributed much to the success of that great enter- prise. On June 2, 1908, Mr. Luecke was united in marriage with Miss Emma M. Foellinger, daughter of Adolph Foellinger, of Fort Wayne. To Mr. and Mrs. Luecke a daughter, Marguerite F., was born July 9, 1910. The family home is at No. 322 West Woodland avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Luecke are members of the Lutheran church.
Sidney C. Lumbard .- A man is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has, and gauged by this significant metewand the life of the late Sidney C. Lumbard was one of opulence, for he meas- ured up to the highest standard of true, loyal and noble manhood and left to the world the heritage of worthy thoughts and worthy deeds. He left a strong impress upon the business and social fabric of Fort Wayne, in which city the major portion of his life was spent, and such were his character and influence that it is specially consistent that in this history be entered a tribute to his memory. At the time of his death, which occurred March 11, 1899, he was one of the foremost expo- nents of the real estate and insurance business in this section of Indiana, and since he passed from the stage of life's mortal endeavors his widow has successfully continued the insurance business to which he long gave his close attention. Mr. Lumbard was born in the city of Brooklyn, New York, on May 27, 1849, and thus was nearly fifty years of age at the time of his demise. He acquired his early education in the old Empire state and was a lad of about fourteen years at the time when his parents established their home in Fort Wayne, in 1863. His parents, Sanford and Mary Ann (Babcock) Lumbard, here passed the residue of their lives, and the father was one of the influential insurance men of Fort Wayne at the time of his death. Sidney C. continued his studies in the Fort Wayne schools until he completed three years of the curric- ulum of the high school, and at the age of eighteen years he entered his father's insurance office, in which he gained the thorough knowledge which later was to enable him to become one of the leading represent- atives of this line of enterprise in northern Indiana. His father was local agent for several insurance companies, but finally became special agent for the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company of Brooklyn, New York, his son, Sidney C., assuming the local agency for the various companies and, in the year 1871, forming a partnership with John S. Irwin in the general insurance and real estate business. He gained precedence as one of the strongest and best-known local insurance underwriters in northern Indiana, his real estate operations expanded to broad scope and importance and he had large investments and interests in Allen county realty at the time of his death. He was a man of fine mentality and well fortified opinions, and his sterling character and mature judg-
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ment caused his advice and counsel to be often sought in connection with business and civic affairs. His course in all of the relations of life was guided and governed by lofty ideals, and his genial and kindly personality gained to him the high regard of all who came within the sphere of his influence. He had no desire for the honors or emoluments of political office, but was a staunch supporter of the cause of the Demo- cratic party, his religious views being in accord with the tenets of the Baptist church, in the faith of which he was reared. He was affiliated with both the York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, and was at all times persona grata in both business and social circles of the community which was long the stage of his earnest and prolific en- deavors. In June, 1870, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lumbard to Miss Adelia Lynn, who was born at Bluffton, the judicial center of Wells county, Indiana, daughter of the late Lewis and Martha (Hutchin- son) Lynn. Mr. and Mrs. Lumbard became the parents of three children : Mrs. Eugene H. Olds, Mrs. Robert H. Carnahan, who died in 1906, and Francis S. Lumbard. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Lumbard has continued the insurance business which he built up and has shown marked ability and circumspection in her practical association with this important line of enterprise, the while she is a popular figure in the social life of the community.
Dr. John Edward McArdle, since 1909 established in the general practice of medicine and surgery in Fort Wayne, was born in Monroe- ville, Allen county, on November 22, 1884, and is the son of Peter and Mary (English) McArdle, concerning which family more extended men- tion is to be found in other pages of this work. Doctor McArdle as a boy attended the Monroeville high school and was graduated therefrom in 1903, following which he entered the Indiana Medical College at Indianapolis and was graduated from that institution in 1907 with the degree M. D. He served an interneship of two years in St. Joseph Hospital, in Fort Wayne, following his graduation, after which he became associated with Doctor Drayer in the general practice of medicine and surgery in Fort Wayne, where he is now located. Doctor McArdle was married on September 6, 1910, to Miss Henrietta Grimine, daughter of G. B. Grimme, a well-known merchant tailor of Fort Wayne. Three boys have been born to Doctor and Mrs. McArdle-Edward, John and Richard. The family have membership in St. Patrick's Roman Catholic church, and Doctor McArdle is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Elks, the Moose and the Friars Club. He is a Democrat and served from 1915 to 1917 as coroner of Allen county.
Peter McArdle .- The year 1875 marked the advent of Peter McArdle in Allen county, Indiana. Prior to that time he had been gathering expe- rience in American ways in the states of New York and Kentucky. Allen county seemed better suited to him than any of the other places he had tested out, and he was content to settle on a farm in Monroe township, where he has since lived and devoted his energies to the development of a fine farm of two hundred acres of fertile Indiana land. Mr. McArdle is of Irish birth and parentage, born in Arbagh, Ireland, on June 22, 1847, son of Owen J. and Annie (Mckinley) McArdle. The parents spent their lives in their native community, rearing a family of thirteen children, of which number only the subject is alive today. Peter McArdle was reared and educated in the community of his birth and was twenty-two years old when he struck out for himself in quest
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of such favors as America had to offer to a young and ambitious Irishman. He spent two years in New York city and, in 1871, moved on to Ken- tucky. Returning to New York he gave another year to life in the great metropolis and then turned his face to the west, locating, in 1875, in Allen county, on a rented farm. A few years of moderate prosperity as a renter made it possible for him to purchase the property on which he is now living. This fine place of two hundred acres is located in Section 18, Monroe township, and it is one of the finest improved pieces of land in the community. Success has followed Mr. McArdle's efforts and he is today one of the solid citizens of the township which has represented his home for the past thirty-five years. Energy, good man- agement and thrift have played an important part in his rise in the scale of material prosperity, and he stands high in the regard of his fellow citizens in the township. Mr. McArdle was married in February, 1881, to Miss Maggie English, who was born and reared in Ohio, and of the nine children that came to them eight are now living. The family are members of the Roman Catholic church, and Mr. McArdle is a Democrat.
David O. McComb .- In connection with the high standard of effi- ciency maintained in the public schools of Allen county there is no need for indirection or conjecture in determining the strength and benignancy of the influence wielded by Mr. McComb, who is now the efficient and valued incumbent of the office of county superintendent of schools, of which position he has been in tenure since his election, in 1913, and in which he has achieved a splendid work in systematizing and advancing all departments of school service in his jurisdiction-notably in advancing the centralization plan, which carries with it the high-school work, his service and progressive policies along this line having resulted in the centralizing of the one-room district schools of the county and in bringing the work of the same up to the most efficient status. Under his regime all departments of school work in the county have been unified and strengthened, and he has proved not only a resourceful exponent of pedagogy but also versatile and enthusiastic as an executive. Mr. McComb was born on a farm in Perry township, this county, June 11, 1872, son of James and Margaret (Simonton) McComb. James McComb was born in Ireland, of Scottish ancestry, and was about three years old when his parents emigrated to the United States, his mother having died about two years later. As a boy he was bound out, or indentured, to a family in Clermont county, Ohio, and he was reared to manhood in the old Buckeye state, where he made good use of such limited educa- tional advantages as were afforded him. After his marriage he came to Allen county, Indiana, about the year 1850, and purchased two hundred acres of wild land, in Perry township. Here his diligence, energy and progressiveness eventually enabled him to reclaim and improve one of the fine farms of the county, and he so ordered his course in all of the relations of life as to merit and receive the unqualified confidence and good will of the community. He was a Democrat in his political proclivities, was influential in local affairs of a public order and served two terms as trustee of Perry township, an office to which he was first elected in 1888. Both he and his wife were active and consistent mem- bers of the United Brethren church. Of the children the eldest is Robert S., a farmer in the state of Washington; Mary is the widow of John J. Rundles and resides in Perry township; James I. is a prosperous farmer
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in Perry township; Thomas C. is a farmer in Kent county, Michigan; Morton T. is engaged in the general merchandise business at Hunter- town, Perry township; William S. was a successful physician and surgeon engaged in practice at Sheldon, this county, at the time of his death; Emma is the widow of Samuel H. Davis and maintains her home in St. Joseph township; Hiram E. is a successful farmer in Kalamazoo county, Michigan; John S. resides in Perry township; and David O., of this review, is the youngest of the number. The boyhood and youth of David 0. McComb were compassed by the invigorating influences of the home farm and after he had availed himself of the advantages of the public schools of his native township his ambition for a higher education was such that he determined to acquire the same, though he realized that in attaining this end he must needs depend largely on his own resources. He attended Taylor University, at Upland, Indiana, one year, and later was a student in the normal university at Angola. Self-application has been largely the medium through which he has gained his liberal education and he has become one of the representative and influential figures in pedagogic circles in his native commonwealth, where he devoted twenty years to effective service as a teacher in the public schools, his activities in this line having been initiated in 1894 and much of his service in the early years having been in the district schools of Allen county. In 1911 Mr. McComb was appointed deputy county auditor, under the administration of Calvin H. Brown, and of this position he continued the incumbent two years. He was soon afterward, in March, 1913, elected to the office of county superintendent of schools, and to the duties of this position he has since devoted himself with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, the tangible results of his efforts constituting the best voucher for the efficiency of his administration, which has met with unequivocal popular approval. He has served at various times in the office of justice of the peace, but he has made educational work his vocation and finds in the same his maximum satisfaction and award. In politics Mr. McComb gives his allegiance to the Democratic party, and though he was reared in the faith of the United Brethren church he is now an active member of the Evangelical Association. He is affil- iated with the lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Hunter- town and, since 1914, has served as president of Fort Wayne Council of the National Union, a fraternal insurance order. On Christmas day of the year 1900 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. McComb to Miss Anna C. Matsch, who was born and reared in Allen county and who is of German lineage. Mr. and Mrs. McComb have three children-James C., Walter A., and Dorothy Mae. The family home in Fort Wayne is known for its culture and is a center of hospitality.
George W. McComb .- General farming and stock-raising have claimed the attention of George W. McComb since he settled on his present farm in Cedar Creek township, in 1906, and he has been enjoying a very gratifying success in the work. A Kentuckian by birth, he is a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Berry) McComb, both of Kentucky birth and ancestry, and all their lives engaged in farming. George McComb was one of the six children of his parents, and his natal day was De- cember 18, 1877. The others are Belle, the wife of James Paugh, of Lagrange, Kentucky ; Ella, the wife of Nicholas Brown, of Westport, Ken- tucky; James, Joseph Milton and Cleveland. The mother of this family died in 1889, when the subject was a lad of twelve years, and the father
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lived until January 13, 1916. The death of the mother brought inevitable changes in the management of the family, and George McComb at the age of twelve went to work for his living, receiving his keep and a wage of five dollars a month for his labors. When he was seventeen years old he went to Edgar county, Illinois, and worked on a farm for some years, in 1906 coming to Cedar Creek township, where he bought a farm of seventy-nine acres in section 29. He settled down in earnest to the work of improving the place, and the ten years spent there have seen many changes in the general appearance of the place. October 18, 1899, Mr. McComb married Iva Ann Rebecca Boyers, born in Edgar county, Illi- nois, daughter of George W. and Josephine (Willhoit) Boyers. She was one of eleven children. The children are as follows: Leroy and Emerson Lee, residents of Boise, Idaho; Florence, deceased; Emma Isador, wife of William Parkison, of Edgar county; Edward Otis; Retta Hammett, wife of Hilton Kirkham, all of Illinois; Iva, wife of the subject; Clara- belle, George, Sylvan, and Josie, all of Edgar county. To Mr. and Mrs. McComb have been born seven children. They are Theodore Clifton, born August 2, 1900; Josephine Lucille, born January 7, 1902; Donovan, born November 8, 1904; Joseph Owen, born April 25, 1906; George Wal- ter, born November 8, 1908; Ernest Harold, born November 27, 1911; and Susan Mary, born April 24, 1914. Mr. McComb is a Democrat, more or less active in county politics, and is now serving as chairman of the Cedar Creek Agricultural society, one of the live organizations of the county in that particular field. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and of the Baptist church, while his wife has membership in the Christian church.
Merton T. McComb has been a resident of Allen county from the time of his birth, is a representative of one of the old and honored families of this section of the state and has marked the passing years with worthy achievement, including service as a successful and popular teacher in the public schools and progressive activities along normal lines of business enterprise. He is now one of the prominent merchants of Huntertown, in Perry township, and is influential in community affairs, as a broad-minded and progressive citizen of the utmost civic loyalty. His birth occurred in Perry township, September 13, 1861, and he is a son of James and Margaret (Simonton) McComb, the former born near Bel- fast, Ireland, of remote Scottish ancestry, and the latter was born in Clermont county, Ohio, in which state their marriage was solemnized. Mrs. McComb was a daughter of Theophilus Simonton, who was a pros- perous farmer in that county, whence he removed to the vicinity of Cin- cinnati, though he later returned to his fine old homestead farm, where he passed the remainder of his life and where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-one years. James McComb was three years of age at the time of his parents' immigration from the Emerald Isle to America, and the family home was established in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the devoted mother died shortly afterward. James was thus a child when he was adopted by James Newbro, in whose home he was reared to manhood, in the meanwhile receiving the advantages of the common schools of the Buckeye state. James Newbro finally came to Allen county, Indiana, and became a pioneer farmer of Perry township. He died in Effingham, Illinois. James McComb accompanied his foster-father on the removal to Allen county, at the age of twenty-two years, and his young wife came with him to the new home in the Hoosier state. He purchased a tract
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of land in Perry township and there developed one of the valuable farms of the county, the property being still in the possession of the McComb family. He was a man of strong individuality and sterling integrity, was influential in his community and served four years as trustee of Perry township. He remained on his old homestead until his death, at the age of seventy-eight years, and his widow was eighty-one years of age when she too was called to the life eternal. They became the parents of ten children, and the family name has continued to be prominently and worthily identified with the history of Allen county. Robert, the eldest son, is now a resident of Seattle; Thomas C. resides in Grand Rapids, Mich .; John S. is a farmer in Perry township; Mary is the wife of John Rundels, of Huntertown; James I. is a farmer in Perry township; Merton T., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Emma is the wife of Samuel Davis, of St. Joseph township; Dr. William S. was graduated in the Fort Wayne Medical College and was engaged in the practice of his profession in his native county at the time of his death, which occurred when he was but thirty-three years of age; Hiram, now of Huntertown; David O., who resides in Fort Wayne, is serving as superintendent of education for Allen county. Merton T. McComb acquired his early education in the schools of Perry township, and in the meanwhile gained close fellowship with the invigorating work of the home farm. In pur- suance of higher academic discipline he attended for one year the Metho- dist College at Fort Wayne, and for ten years thereafter he was an able and popular representative of the pedagogic profession, having taught for three years in the district schools of Perry township and for seven years in the schools of White county. About 1889 Mr. McComb resumed his active association with farm industry, and was one of the progressive agriculturists and stock-growers of his native township until 1904, when he purchased the well established general merchandise business of Dr. Frank Greenwell, at Huntertown, where he continued with unequivocal success until 1916, when he sold it to his brother, Hiram E. He is one of the representative men and loyal and public-spirited citizens of the village. He assisted in the organization of the Huntertown State Bank, was one of the members of its original directorate. In the autumn of 1916 he became prominently identified with the organization of the Hun- tertown Agricultural society, and he is always to be found aligned as a staunch supporter of measures and enterprises advanced for the general good of the community. On March 17, 1890, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. McComb to Miss Rosetta, daughter of Philander Bush, of White county, and concerning the five children of this union the following brief data are consistently entered: Elsie, who was graduated in the Fort Wayne Business College after having fully profited by the advantages of the public schools, is now the wife of Ralph Jones, of Fort Wayne; Verine E., whose educational acquirement included a course in the Fort Wayne high school ; James Lynn likewise had the advantages of the Fort Wayne high school and he is now engaged in the automobile business at Hunter- town; Lydia B. was graduated in the Fort Wayne high school and is now a member of the class of 1917 in the Lakeside School, at Fort Wayne; and Glenn is attending the public schools of Huntertown.
Charles McCulloch .- During the period of three-quarters of a cen- tury, Charles McCulloch, banker, born and reared in his home city, has witnessed the growth of the place from a frontier village to a municipality of metropolitan proportions. In this same period Mr. McCulloch, passing
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from the years of childhood to maturity, has ever stood as a loyal, active element in the making of the greater Fort Wayne of today-Indiana's second city. Born during the period of the building of the Wabash and Erie canal, he was a child of three years when traffic on this great arti- ficial waterway, with Fort Wayne as the center of activity, was opened between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. During his youth the first railroads were built, connecting Fort Wayne with Chicago and the East. The memory of these early days of development remains clear in the mind of Mr. McCulloch and much written history of the period has received the light of his reminiscent reviews of conditions of former times. The father of Charles McCulloch-Judge Hugh McCulloch-was ever an inspiration to the son in the accomplishment of high ideals. Rising from the plane of a frontier village lawyer and banker to the loftiest place of trust in the nation's world of finance, Hugh McCulloch became the man to whom was entrusted the responsible task of steering the Ship of State through troublous financial waters during the period of the Civil War and the succeeding days of reconstruction. Hugh Mc- Culloch came to Fort Wayne on horseback in the spring of 1833. He has just completed a course in law and had chosen Fort Wayne as a likely place for the practice of his profession. His services as judge of the probate court of Allen county were cut short by his appointment, in 1835, as the cashier of the Fort Wayne branch of the State Bank of Indiana. With the reorganization of the Bank of the State of Indiana he was elected to serve as the president of the central institution. In 1863, Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury of the United States, summoned Judge McCulloch to the national capital and offered him the office of the first comptroller of the currency of the United States. The acceptance and the appointment by President Lincoln followed. Mr. McCulloch's successful method of organizing the newly created depart- ment and the national banking system, by which the state banks through- out the Union were superseded by national banks, has given him the appellation of "the father of the national banking system." In the formation of his second cabinet President Lincoln selected Judge McCul- loch as secretary of the treasury, in which position, during the succeeding administration of President Johnson, he coped successfully with the nation's financial problems during the period of reconstruction, and he served in the same position in the cabinet of President Arthur. In 1870, Judge McCulloch went to London, England, as the resident and managing partner of Jay Cook, McCulloch and Company. Judge McCulloch was born in Kennebunk, Maine, in 1808. His marriage with Sarah Man was solemnized in Fort Wayne. Charles McCulloch was born in Fort Wayne, September 3, 1840. For a period he was under the instruction of a private tutor and later graduated from the Fort Wayne public schools. During his youth and early manhood he became closely connected with the bank- ing business, since the family residence was connected with the original building in which the branch bank was located at the southwest corner of East Main and Clinton streets. Under the instruction of his father he early acquired a taste for the line of effort which had marked the success of Judge McCulloch. Mr. McCulloch served as the president of the Hamilton bank and its successor, the Hamilton National bank, his connection dating from 1874. The original private banking house of Allen Hamilton and Company was founded in 1853 by Allen Hamilton, Hugh McCulloch and Jesse L. Williams. Upon the reorganization of the
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