USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume II > Part 3
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No one contributed more to the success of the work in the early and trying years of its history than Samuel Hanna. From 1828 to 1836 he was successively canal commissioner and fund commissioner, negotiat- ing the money with which the work was carried on, besides acting in the legislature as chairman of the canal committee.
During the same period he took a prominent part in the organiza- tion of the financial policy of the state, subsequent to the veto of the United States bank act. The creation of state banks being recom- mended by the president, Judge Hanna was given an opportunity to con- sider the proper measures to take in that direction. He strenuously opposed and defeated a measure proposed, and in the next legislature was given, as chairman of the committee having the measure in charge, the duty of drafting a charter. This he did so wisely that the state banking system of Indiana, which stood until the time of civil war, was always substantial, and a credit to Indiana. A branch was at once established at Fort Wayne, of which Judge Hanna was president for a considerable period.
In 1836, Judge Hanna purchased the remaining land interests of Barr & McCorkle, now within the city limits, and until the opening of the canal brought a large increase of population he was much em- barrassed by this absorption of his capital. But he never distressed those who had purchased his lands and failed in meeting their obliga- tions, preferring to suffer inconvenience himself, and many landowners owe their prosperity to-day to his kindness. After the building of the canal, an era followed in improvement which may be termed the plank road epoch. Jesse Vermilyea visited some of these highways in the
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east and Canada, and his report incited Judge Hanna and others, to the construction of such roads for the benefit of Fort Wayne. A route was provided by the canal from east to west, substantially that of the Wabash railway of to-day, and now a route from north to south, a fore- runner of the Grand Rapids & Indiana road, was a desideratum. The Fort Wayne & Lima (LaGrange county) plank road company was organized, and stock subscriptions solicited. But cash was very scarce, and subscriptions were mostly made in goods, land and labor. Nearly all the necessary capital was borrowed from the branch bank, and this was expended in erecting saw-mills. Contractors being timid, Judge Hanna himself, took the first ten miles north of Fort Wayne and per- sonally superintended and ax in hand, did much of the work. Like a born general, he led, and as a necessary sequel, others followed. With the efficient co-operation of William Mitchell, Drusus Nichols and others, within two years there was a plank road from Fort Wayne to Ontario, a distance of fifty miles. This, the pioneer plank road of northern Indiana, was followed by the Piqua road, in which Mr. Hanna was also an indispensable factor. Now the era opened in which the prosperity of cities depended upon the building of railroads, and again Judge Hanna led the army of progress. Peculiarly in this direction did he have great influence upon the future of Fort Wayne, in the growth of which the railroad industries have had a predominant part. When that grand national line of railway, which is now the pride and strength of Fort Wayne, and with which his name is forever identified, the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railway, was first projected - beginning with the section from Pittsburgh to Massillon, thence from Massillon to Crest- line, thence from Crestline to Fort Wayne, and finally developing in the grand idea of a consolidated continuous line of railway from Pittsburg to Chicago - Judge Hanna was among the first to see, to appreciate, and to take hold of the golden enterprise, that was, in ten years' time, to bring up Fort Wayne from the condition of an insignificent country town, to rank and dignity among the first commercial and manufactur- ing towns of Indiana. When the construction reached Crestline, Judge Hanna and his friends induced the voting of a subscription of $100,000 by Allen county, which was the turning point toward the completion of the enterprise. He and Pliny Hoagland and William Mitchell took the contract for the construction of the section from Crestline to Fort Wayne, 131 miles, but in a short time funds gave out, the work stopped, and gloom overspread the hopes of the city. Dr. Merriman, the presi- dent of the company, resigned. In this emergency, the great strength of character of Samuel Hanna was the unfailing resource. He was elected president, and in three days was in the east, pledging the indi- vidual credit of the contractors for the necessary funds. Being success- ful, he hastened to Montreal and Quebec, and redeemed the iron, which was held for transportation charges. The work was resumed, and in November, 1854, the trains from Philadelphia ran into Fort Wayne.
While yet overwhelmed with the work just mentioned, the Fort
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Wayne & Chicago railroad company was organized, and Judge Hanna elected president. Money was to be derived from the sale of stocks and bonds, and stock subscriptions which were paid in cash amounted to less than three per cent. of the cost of construction and equipment. The main part of the subscriptions were paid in land and labor. The sale of bonds was slow and discouraging.
Quoting again the appreciative words of Hon. J. K. Edgertoun: The powerful corporation, now so strong and prosperous, measuring its annual income by well-nigh half a score of millions of dollars, from the fall of 1854, to the close of 1860, passed through a fearful struggle, not only for the completion of its work, but for its own corporate and financial life. The financial disasters of 1857 found the consolidated company with an incomplete road, with meager revenues, and a broken credit. Many of its best friends, even among its own managers, were inclined to grow weary and to faint by the way. Through all this trying period no man worked more faithfully and hopefully, or was consulted more freely, or leaned upon with more confidence, than Judge Hanna. He was a tower of strength to an almost ruined enterprise. He was at brief times gloomy and desponding, but he was a man of large hope, and a robust physical organization, that eminently fitted him to stand up and toil on to a successful end. No man who has ever been connected with the manage- ment of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad has had a larger share of confidence of all interested in it than Judge Hanna possessed. In all phases of the company's affairs, in the midst of negotiations involv- ing the most vital interests in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadel- phia and New York, surrounded by the most sagacious financiers and railway men of the country, such men as J. F. D. Lanier, Richard H. Winslow, John Ferguson, Charles Moran, J. Edgar Thompson, William B. Ogden, George W. Cass and Amasa Stone. There was in Judge Hanna a weight of character, a native sagacity and far-seeing judg- ment, and a fidelity of purpose to the public trust he represented, that commanded the respect of all, and made him a peer of the ablest of them. Judge Hanna was especially the advocate and guardian of the local interests of the road. He was ever watchful for the home stock- holders, the local trade, the rights and interests of the towns and coun- ties on the railway, and of the men who worked on the road. In those dark days, when the company could not, or did not, always pay its men, and suffering and strikes were impending, Judge Hanna sympathized with, and did all he could for, the men on the road who earned their daily bread by the work of their hands. He had always in his mind the welfare of Fort Wayne, and worked unceasingly for the establishment of the immense shops of the company at this city. In this he had the aid of able men, but he had to encounter the opposition of others no less active. By direct demand, by strategy and invincible persistence, in the meetings of the directors, he pursued his object to success. Before the road reached Chicago, the consolidation and formation of the great Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad company was accomplished,
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mainly through the efforts of Judge Hanna, who became vice president. The road being completed to Plymouth, there was sentiment in favor of using another line from that point to Chicago, but Mr. Hanna pressed for an independent through line, and was soon successful.
About three months before the end of his career he was called to a meeting at Grand Rapids of the directors of the proposed Grand Rap- ids & Indiana railroad company, another project which languished, and was chosen president of the company, though he feared to assume the responsibility. In addition to these greater projects, he was a partner in the establishment of the woolen factory, the great Bass foundry and machine shops, and the Olds manufactories, to the founding of which he contributed capital. His religious training was in the faith of the Pres- byterian church, of which his father was an elder for some fifty years. He joined that church in 1843, and was a ruling elder during the greater part of the remainder of his life. His last illness was of short duration. Taken ill June 6, 1866, he died on the IIth. The city mourned as it never had before. The council, passing resolutions of sorrow, adjourned; houses were draped with somber crape; and the railroad shops and buildings were festooned with evergreen, through which ran the inscrip- tion, "Samuel Hanna, the Workingman's Friend." The bells of all the churches tolled in unison while a procession two miles in length followed his mortal remains to the grave.
Marked features of Judge Hanna's character were his untiring energy, hopefulness and self-reliance. He was not a polished or highly educated man, but enjoyed the benefits of a higher education than schools can give. He was eminently a leader, a general of civil life, an administrator of affairs. Not a man of minutæ or notably systematic, his office was to call such intellects as lieutenants to his service, while he held in his broad and comprehensive mind the great plan with all its bearings and objects. He was a planter and builder, rather than a leg- islator. With high elements of statesmanship in his character, the work that lay before him was of the formative kind, and to him was given the opportunity to be higher than a statesman, in that he was one of those great characters of imperishable memory, who are known as the builders of cities and the founders of commonwealths. Like all such men his private character was irreproachable and his family life quaint and lovable. A monument to this noble man stands in Lindenwood, but Fort Wayne itself is his most worthy memorial, and right worthily might be copied for Samuel Hanna that famous epitaph to the architect of the great London cathedral, "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice."
William G. and George W. Ewing, prominent in the early history of Fort Wayne, were sons of Col. Alexander Ewing, who was born in Penn- sylvania, in 1753, the third son of Alexander Ewing, a native of Ireland. Alexander enlisted in the revolutionary war at the age of sixteen, and served during the last three years of that struggle. In 1787 he engaged in a trading expedition to the Six Nation Indian tribes, and established a post in the wilderness on Buffalo creek, now the site of the city of
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Buffalo. He prospered here, and a few years later settled on a splendid farm, on the Genesee, about sixty miles above Rochester. Here he was married to Charlotte Griffith, a sister of Captain William Griffith, who was one of the garrison at Chicago at the time of the massacre. In 1802 they removed to the river Raisin and settled near where the town of Monroe now is, and in 1807, they moved again and settled in the town of Washington, Ohio, now called Piqua, and lived there and at Troy until 1822, when they came to Fort Wayne. Here Col. Ewing died Jan- uary 27, 1822. During the war of 1812 he served in a company of scouts under his brother-in-law, Capt. Griffith, and there gained his honorary title. His wife passed away March 13, 1843. Their children were: Sophie C., who married Judge Hood; Charles Wayne, formerly presi - dent judge of the eighth judicial circuit of Indiana; William G .; Alexan- der H., a successful merchant of Cincinnati; George W .; Lavinia, who married George B. Walker, of Logansport; and Louisa, who married Dr. Charles E. Sturgis. William G. and George W. were born during the residence on the river Raisin. In 1827 they formed the firm of . W. G. & G. W. Ewing, and by the articles of partnership, all their estate became the property of the firm until one died. During the whole period of their association no settlement was asked for between them, such was their mutual confidence. There were many side branches. Will- iam S. Edsall was one of the firm of Ewing, Edsall & Co., and he was succeeded by Richard Chute. At Logansport, G. B. Walker was the partner in the house, and at LaGro was the establishment of Ewing & Barlow. At Westport, Mo., a business was done under the title of W. G. & G. W. Ewing, and many other branches were located in Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Indeed the name of the Ewings was familiar from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains. William G. Ewing died July 11, 1854, and his brother then devoted his whole energies to settling up the estate, and this settlement was made to the satisfaction of the administrators, Hugh McCulloch and Dr. Sturgis, in October, 1865. Col. George W. Ewing began his business career at a trading post at Wapakoneta, and he took a prominent part in the subsequent treaties in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. In 1828 he was married to Harriet Bourie and then lived at Fort Wayne until 1839 when he removed to Logansport, which he and a colony from Fort Wayne founded. From 1839, to October, 1846, he lived at Peru, and was then at St. Louis until the death of his brother. He then made his residence at Fort Wayne until his death, December 27, 1865. George W. Ewing, the son of Col. G. W. Ewing, was born at Peru, Ind. He was an esteemed citizen of Fort Wayne, where he died. In 1864 he was married to Mary Charlotte Sweetzer, a native of Fort Wayne. Their son, George W. Ewing, the third of that name, and the only living male representative of the famous family, was born in this city September 26, 1866. He is a well known citizen, and takes an active interest in politics as a republican. In July, 1889, he was appointed a member of the staff of Governor Hovey, with the rank of major.
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Hon. Alfred P. Edgerton, a notable citizen of Fort Wayne, who has been prominent in the political history of Indiana and Ohio, was born at Plattsburg, Clinton county, N. Y., January II, 1813, the eldest son of Bela and Phœbe (Ketchum) Edgerton, who were married at Platts- burg, March 24, 1811. His father, a descendant of Richard Edgerton, one of the original proprietors of Norwich, Conn., was born in New London county, Conn., September 29, 1787. He was a lawyer by pro- fession, a graduate of Middlebury college, a member of the assembly of New York from Clinton county for several years, and died at Fort Wayne, September 10, 1874. His wife, Phœbe Ketchum, was born at Livingston Manor, N. Y., March 27, 1790, and died at Hicksville, Ohio, August 24, 1844. Mr. Edgerton, after graduating from the Plattsburg academy, took the editorship of a newspaper in his native town in 1833, but in the fall of the same year removed to New York city and engaged in commercial pursuits. He removed to Ohio in the spring of 1837, and became the representative of the American land company and Hicks & Co., and established an office at Hicksville, where 107,000 acres of land were sold by him to settlers. He became the owner, himself, of nearly forty thousand acres, which were mostly sold by him to settlers on liberal terms. In 1845 he was elected to the Ohio state senate from a large territory which embraced nearly ten of the present northwestern counties. He immediately took an active part on the side of the democratic minority, and showed himself a master of the important financial questions which were the subject of discussion in the senate by the ablest men of the state. Becoming prominent by a debate with the Whig leader, he was mentioned as a candidate for the gover- norship of the state, and he was alluded to by a leading democratic journal as " an able and talented statesman; while faithfully adhering to sound democratic principles, his unimpeached private character, high sense of honor and sterling integrity as a gentleman, have commanded the respect of his most bitter opponents." So even and consistent has been the long career of Mr. Edgerton, that this early expression regarding him, may still be truthfully quoted as an estimate of his character. In 1850, after a brilliant career in the state senate, he was elected to the United States house of representatives, and re-elected in 1852. He was second on the important committee of claims during his first term and chairman of that committee on his second term. On the floor his arguments commanded the respectful attention of his associates. From 1853 to 1856 he held the important position of financial agent of the state of Ohio, at New York. In 1856 he was chairman of the com- mittee on organization of the democratic national convention held at Cincinnati, and subsequently he was one of a committee selected by the legislature of the state of Ohio, to investigate the frauds upon the state treasury. In 1857 Mr. Edgerton removed to Fort Wayne, but retained his citizenship in Ohio until 1862. He became lessee of the Indiana canal, associated with Hugh McCulloch and Pliny Hoagland, in 1859, and held the position of general manager of the division from the
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state line to Terre Haute until 1868. In January, 1868, he was nomi- nated by the Indiana democratic state convention for lieutenant-gover- nor, Thomas A. Hendricks being at the head of the state ticket, which was defeated, it will be remembered, by 861 votes. Other political positions he filled prior to the latter date were those of delegate to the Baltimore convention of 1848 and the Chicago convention of 1864, but since 1868 he has not taken an active part in politics. In 1872 he was tendered the nomination for governor of Indiana by the O'Connor dem- ocrats, but declined to endorse that movement. He was for many years a member of the school board of Fort Wayne, and resigned that position to accept the appointment of civil service commissioner tendered him by President Cleveland. This office he held until 1888. The latter posi- tion, like all others, was filled by him in a manner satisfactory to his party, and his constituents, with whom he has always been popular. In private life Mr. Edgerton is an accomplished and genial gentleman, and during his residence in Fort Wayne, has been held in high esteem by the whole people.
One of the most distinguished citizens of Fort Wayne in its early days was Capt. Robert Brackenridge, who enjoyed the distinction of being a pioneer in both the cities of Cincinnati and Fort Wayne. He was born at Springfield, Bucks county, Penn., February 8, 1783, and there resided until 1805, when he made a trip as far west as Cincinnati, and then in 1806 became a resident of that place, where he remained ten years. When the war of 1812 broke out, he was one of the first to volunteer as one of a company organized at Brookville, Franklin county, Ind., and when this met with other companies at Lawrence- burgh, for muster, he delivered a patriotic address to his comrades, and was elected first lieutenant. After marching to Urbana, Ohio, they were ordered by Gen. Harrison to remain in Indiana as a reserve force. Sub- sequently the company was disbanded, and Capt. Brackenridge then held a position in the paymaster's department at Cincinnati until peace was declared. He made his residence at Brookville in 1816, and was appointed cashier of the branch at that place of the territorial bank. In 1829 he was appointed by President Jackson register of the land office at Fort Wayne, and was reappointed, holding the office eight years. He resided at Fort Wayne from the fall of 1830 until his death, May 9, 1859. He was a prominent Mason, and one of the charter mem- bers of Fort Wayne chapter. Capt. Brackenridge was a man of con- scientious religious convictions, was of incorruptible integrity and filled the responsible positions assigned him with honor and fidelity. He was married July 27, 1820, to Mrs. Hannah Northrup, nce Culley, who was born in New York, and died at Fort Wayne in 1870, at seventy-six years of age. They had five children (two now living), of whom the third born is George W. Brackenridge. The latter was born at Brook- ville, September 28, 1825, but spent his life after his fourth year at Fort Wayne, where he received the education of the pioneer days. One of the teachers to whom he is principally indebted was Alexander M.
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McJunkin, a Pennsylvanian, and another is Myron F. Barber, now a resident of this city. For twenty years from 1848 he engaged in farm- ing, and then removed to the city and conducted a spoke factory. He- is in politics a democrat of the old school. For two years he was trustee of St. Joseph township, and in 1888 was elected trustee of Wayne town- ship. He was married in 1848 to Mary D. Orwig, who was born in Perry county, Ohio, in 1829, and they have three children: Julia B., Robert O., and Hannah M. He and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The Archer family is one conspicuous in the history of the early set- tlement and mention is made of their achievements under the head of Washington township and elsewhere. Benjamin Archer, the progenitor of the family in Allen county, though an elderly man when he came here, was full of energy, and his usefulness was recognized by the peo- ple in his election to the associate judgeship upon the organization of the county. He found time, however, to manage his brick yard in Wash- ington township, and he and his family made the brick for and erected the first brick buildings in Fort Wayne, one upon the first lot west of Morgan & Beach's hardware, the other now owned and occupied by John Schweiters. They also furnished the brick and built the first court- house, and the first Masonic temple, on the site now occupied by Sol Bash & Co. They also aided in the construction of the feeder division of the canal and the feeder dam. Judge Archer was of Scotch-Irish descent, of the Protestant faith, a whig in politics, of intellectual and moral sturdiness, and many mourned his loss when he died at Fort Wayne in 1833. The Masons, to which order he belonged, buried him in the old grave yard where the county jail now stands. His remains and those of his wife, who was a native of one of the Carolinas, and some grand- children were afterward removed to the Broadway cemetery, but now nothing remains to mark their resting place. Of the few now living who attended that funeral one is Peter Kiser, and another Judge Archer's son-in-law, Edward Campbell, who lives at Albion, Noble county, and is now about ninety years of age. Judge Archer left three sons, David, John S. and Benjamin, and three daughters, Susan, Elizabeth and Sarah. John S. was a brother-in-law of the Hon. Hugh Hanna, and left one son James S., who married Catherine King, of a family which recently left a valuable estate in the heart of the city. They had three sons and one daughter, now the wife of C. E. Archer. Benjamin Archer, jr., married a Miss Petit. David, the eldest son, married Anna Chrisenbury, a native of Kentucky, and his eldest son, Samuel, married Matilda Whiteside. These were the parents of John H. Archer, now a prominent citizen of Fort Wayne. The Whiteside family were also notable in the early days. The family came from Ireland to Virginia before the war of the revolu- tion, during which the grandfather of Matilda Whiteside made clothing for Washington's men and received a great quantity of continental mon ey in return, which he afterward burned as worthless. His son James and his son Samuel removed to Baltimore, where James married Mrs. Ward,
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a very handsome and intelligent lady who was related to the Baltimores of Maryland. They came west and settled at Chillicothe, and came thence to Fort Wayne in 1825, accompanied by all the children of Mr. Whiteside. Of the children by his first wife, Madison, John, Harvey, and Jane, and the children by his second wife Mrs. Ward, Jeremiah, Matilda, Malinda and Harriet, all are dead except Jane who is living with a daughter in Kansas. James Whiteside settled near the Archers, and the marriage of the children of the two families above referred to soon occurred. Then Samuel and Matilda Archer moved upon their land, three eighty-acre tracts of canal lands, three miles north of Fort Wayne. They had eight children, six sons and two daughters, five of whom are living: David R. is engaged in real estate business in Omaha; Mary J. is a resident of Fort Wayne, and Anna, of Piqua, Ohio; John H., the eldest son, was born on the farm March 23, 1837, and passed his early life there, receiving such education as was possible to gain by attending a country school three months out of a year. His father died in 1852, en route to California. June 10, 1860, Mr. Archer was married to Anna M. Hopple, born of German parentage in Northampton county, Penn., and they have had five children, all residents of Fort Wayne: Charles E., born March 28, 1861; Joseph F., born January 23, 1864; W. Sherman, born October 19, 1866; Olive Edith, born August 24, 1868, and Mary L., born November 19, 1870. Charles E. and Sherman form the firm of Archer Bros., printers, who have been doing business as the Gazette Job Printing company, and are now located in a handsome office of their own on Clinton street, near the new government building. In 1872 Mr. Archer purchased fifty acres of land in the northern suburbs of the city of Fort Wayne, at a cost of $20,000, and had it platted as Archer's addition. The remarkable advantages of this tract as a resi- dence portion of the city has made it a popular site for many comfort- able homes. Mr. Archer has a vivid memory and can recall many historic scenes and characters back to the time almost of his infancy. He is one of the leading citizens of the metropolis he has witnessed the growth of, and his unfailing energy has contributed much to the progress of events. The sixth generation in Allen county of this family are now counted in the census. The family are nearly all republicans in politics, and are independent, manly and honorable in all the relations of life.
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