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 60
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Col. Robert S. Robertson .- Robert Robertson, a native of Scot- land, born in October, 1756, emigrated from Kinross-shire in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and settled in Washington county, N. Y., where he died November 6, 1840. His son, Nicholas Robertson, was born at North Argyle, Washington county, May 12, 1803, and was for many years a justice of the peace and postmaster of his town. He mar-
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ried Martha Hume-Stoddart, of New York city, who was born March 20, 1812, and died January 20, 1867. She was a descendant of two Scotch families, the Humes and Stoddarts, the latter name being derived from Standard, the first of the name having come to England with William the Conqueror, as standard bearer for the Vicompte de Pules- den. Their son, Robert S. Robertson, now a distinguished citizen of Fort Wayne, was born at North Argyle, April 16, 1839. His early life was spent under the influences of a strict Scotch Presbyterian element planted in that region of New York about 1764, by Capt. Duncan Campbell, under the patronage of the Duke of Argyle. He studied in the common schools and at Argyle academy, and when not so engaged worked with his father in the saw-mill and grist-mill of the latter. Early in 1859 he entered the office of Hon. James Gibson, at Salem, N. Y., and commenced the study of the law, and at New York city continued his studies until December, 1860, under Hon. Charles Crary. He was admitted to the bar in November, 1860, his examination being conducted by Hons. J. W. Edmunds, E. S. Benedict and M. S. Bidwell; Judges Josiah Sutherland, Henry Hageboom and B. W. Bonney presiding in general term. He then settled at Whitehall, N. Y., but in the summer of 1861 commenced raising a company for the war. The recruits, as · fast as enlisted, were placed in barracks at Albany, where in the winter of 1861-62 an order was received to consolidate all parts of companies and regiments and forward them at once to Washington. Under this order, his men were assigned to Company I, Ninety-third regiment New York volunteer infantry, but refused to go unless Robertson would go with them. Rather than desert the men he had enlisted, he at once mus- tered into the service as a private, but was soon made orderly sergeant of his company, and donning knapsack and shouldering his musket went to the front with his regiment. In April, 1862, he was commissioned second lieutenant, and in February, 1863, was promoted to first lieuten- ant, Company K. He was in all the campaigns of the army of the Potomac until discharged from the service. For a time, and during the Gettysburg campaign, he was acting adjutant of his regiment. Soon afterward, in 1863, while his regiment was guard at army headquarters, he was tendered, and accepted the position of aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. Nelson A. Miles, then commanding the fighting first brigade, first division, second army corps. While on this duty he was twice wounded, once in the charge at Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864, when a musket ball was flattened on his knee, and again on 30th of May at Tolopotomoy Creek, when he was shot from his horse in a charge, a minie ball passing through his abdomen from the front of the right hip to the back of the left, at which time he was reported among the mor- tally wounded. With a strong constitution he recovered sufficiently to go to the front before Petersburg, but his wound broke out afresh and he was discharged September 3, 1864, "for disability from wounds re- ceived in action." For his services he was the recipient of two brevet commissions, one from the president conferring the rank of captain by
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brevet, and another from the governor of New York, conferring the rank of colonel, both of which read, "for gallant and meritorious serv- ices in the battles of Spottsylvania and Tolopotomoy Creek." He was in eleven general engagements and numerous skirmishes, and was never off duty until he received his second wound.
During two years following the war he was engaged in the practice of law at Washington, D. C., and while living there was married, July 19, 1865, at Whitehall, N. Y., to Elizabeth H. Miller, whose grand- father, Alexander Robertson, immigrated from Blair Athol, in 1804. They have five children: Nicholas, Louise, Robert, Mabel and Annie. The residence of Col. Robertson and family at Fort Wayne began in 1866. His ability and devotion to the cause of the republican party at once made him prominent, and in 1867 he was elected city attorney for two years. In 1868 he was nominated by his party for state senator from the counties of Allen and Adams, and made a thorough canvass in the face of overwhelming odds. In 1871 he was appointed register in bankruptcy and United States commissioner; the former office he re- signed in 1875, and the other in 1876. When the republican state con- vention met in the latter year, he was nominated, entirely without his seeking, for the office of lieutenant-governor.
He entered the canvass with great vigor, but after he had spoken in thirty-one counties he was taken with malarial fever, by which he was prostrated for more than a month. In 1886, there having been a vacancy created in the office of lieutenant-governor by the resignation of Gen. M. D. Manson, both the republican and democratic parties nominated condidates for the office, and after a memorable campaign, Col. Robertson was elected. At the time appointed by law he was declared elected and took the oath of office as lieutenant-governor in the presence of the general assembly. By this time, however, the opposition had decided to regard the election for that office as unauthorized by law, and as it had the majority of the senate, over which, by virtue of law, the lieutenant-governor was the presiding officer, Col. Robertson was forbidden to assume the function of his office. Attempts were made to obtain a judicial decision, by the opposition, by means of two injunction suits, but these ended in the rul- ing of the supreme court that the legislature had exclusive jurisdiction. Upon a second demand for the rights of the lieutenant-governor, Col. Robertson was forcibly excluded from the senate chamber. Great ex- citement resulted, in which the calm, dignified and courageous bearing of Col. Robertson had great effect in preventing a calamitous outcome of the deplorable affair. He counselled that no attempts at force be made in his behalf, but that the question should be submitted to the peaceful arbitration of the people, and doubtless prevented a serious outbreak which might have proven disastrous to the welfare and dignity of the state. In all other functions of the office to which he was elected Lieutenant-governor Robertson performed his duties without hinderance. While holding this office, he was for two successive years elected presi- dent of the state board of equalization, by that body, an office theretofore
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always held by the governor. Since 1883 he has served as a trustee of the Indiana university, and as chairman of the library committee has done much creditable work in replacing the library destroyed by fire in 1883, by a new one consisting of some 10,000 well selected volumes, and in planning the beautiful library building now in process of erec- tion. Col. Robertson has devoted much time to historical and scientific studies, and has a collection of minerals, fossils and pre-historic curios of great value. He is a member of the American Association for the ad- vancement of science, of the State Historical Society and of the Congres International des Americanistes, of Europe, and his papers have ap- peared in the Smithsonian reports, Magazine of American History, North American Review, and other publications. He has also made valuable contributions to the war history publications of, the Loyal Le- gion. Soon after the inauguration of President Harrison, Governor Robertson was tendered the position of judge of the Indian territory. This he declined, and in May accepted the unsolicited appointment as member of the board of registration and elections of the territory of Utah.
Hon. Robert Lowry, of Fort Wayne, Ind., was born in Ireland; removed in early youth to Rochester, N. Y .; was instructed in the elementary branches at private schools, and had partial academic course, but education was mainly self-acquired; was librarian of Rochester Athenæum and Young Men's association; studied law; removed to Fort Wayne in 1843; was elected by the common council, while yet under age, city recorder; was re-elected but declined; was admitted to the bar; commenced practice in Goshen, Ind., in 1846; was appointed by the governor, circuit judge in 1852, to fill vacancy for an unexpired term; was unexpectedly nominated by the democrats in 1856, in a district having a large adverse majority, as a candidate for congress, and defeated only by a close vote; in 1860 was president of the dem- ocratic state convention, and one of the four delegates at large to the democratic national convention; in 1861 and 1862, while still retaining residence and practice in Indiana, he had a law office in Chicago; in 1864, was nominated by the democrats and elected cir- cuit judge for a term of six years; while yet occupying the bench, was again nominated by the democrats in 1866, and re-nominated in 1868, as a candidate for congress in heavily republican districts, and defeated, but by reduced majorities; in 1867 he resumed his residence in Fort Wayne; was re-elected circuit judge on the expiration of his term in 1870, without opposition; was delegate at large to the demo- cratic national convention in 1872; resigned the circuit judgeship in January, 1875, and resumed practice in Fort Wayne as a member of the firm of Lowry, Robertson & O'Rourke; in September, 1877, he was appointed by the governor on the unanimous recommendation of the bar, as judge of the newly-created superior court, and afterward elected as such in 1878 by a unanimous popular vote; was elected the first presi- dent of the Indiana State Bar association, in July, 1879; on the expira-
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tion of his term as judge, in 1882, he was elected to the Forty-eighth congress, and was re-elected to the Forty-ninth congress, as a democrat, receiving 19,502 votes, against 16,957 votes for his republican competitor. Upon the close of his second term in congress he resumed the active prac- tice of the law in Fort Wayne, extending it throughout the district, an exemplar of the activity and industry which ought to characterize the lawyer, and which have been such marked features in the professional career of this distinguished veteran of the Indiana bar. Judge Low- ry's career in congress was characterized by unwearied diligence in the interest of the people of his district, close application, especially to all calls made on him in the interest of the veteran soldiers of his own and other districts, and was always found on the side of the people in all questions before congress. During his services he took an active interest in procuring appropriations for the splendid government building lately erected in Fort Wayne, and to him more than any one else is justly due the several and liberal appropriations voted for it from time to time. Blessed with vigorous health, of stalwart frame, fully alive to the multiform phases of the great social , political and economic activities of this marvelous age, Judge Lowry gives to the questions of the day that calm, judicial examination which only a trained intellect can bestow, and which enters so largely into shaping public opinion on great public questions.
Hon. Samuel M. Hench was elected judge of the superior court to serve out the time for which Judge Worden had been elected, and served until the general election in 1886, and the qualification of a suc- cessor. Judge Hench was born on the 22nd day of June, 1846, near Port Royal, Juniata county, Penn. His father was a civil engineer and architect. In his early years he worked with his father and attended the public schools. He was afterward a student at Airy View acad- emy and far along in his course when, in the early part of 1862, he en- listed in Company F, of the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers, and entered the service in the late war. On the 13th day of December, 1862, he was severly wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg. He was mustered out with his regiment at Harris- burg in 1863. He came west to Fort Wayne in September, 1863. There he engaged in work upon a farm in the vicinity of the city, and in the city, until 1864, when he enlisted in Company F, of the Eighty-third regiment of Indiana volunteers, entered the service again, and was mus- tered out in 1865, after the close of the war. During the remainder of 1865, and the years 1866 and 1867, he attended a commercial college at Fort Wayne, took private instructions with Prof. Robinson, of the Methodist college, and with Prof. Smart, and taught school in the country. In the fall of 1867, he went to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and taught a term of school near the city, and at the same time commenced reading law with Messrs. Clinton & Sapp, a firm of distinguished law- yers of that city. He was admitted to the bar in 1869. While reading law he was adeputy sheriff from January, 1868, until October, 1869. He XXXII
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was also chairman of the democratic county central committee of Potta- watomie county, in which Council Bluffs is situated, from 1869 to 1871, both inclusive. After his admission to the bar he practiced law at Council Bluffs until 1872, when he returned to Fort Wayne and again engaged in the general practice of the law. Subsequent to that he was appointed and elected prosecuting attorney of the criminal court, and elected judge of the criminal court, and of the superior court, as already stated. After his retirement from the bench of the superior court in November, 1886, Judge Hench again engaged in the general practice at Fort Wayne, until the fourth day of August, 1888, when he was appointed by President Cleveland to the important position of chief of the law and miscellaneous division in the second comptroller's office in the treasury department at Washington. Judge Hench is a man of ability and energy, and made a most efficient prosecutor, and a pains- taking and acceptable judge. While judge of the criminal and superior courts, he decided important cases, from the decisions of which appeals were taken to the supreme court.
Hon. Robert C. Bell, a prominent attorney of Indiana, was born at Clarksburg, Decatur county, Ind., July 13, 1844. His grandparents were of Virginian descent, and his grandfather, John Bell, was a soldier in the war of 1812. His father, Hiram Bell, a native of Maysville, Ky., married Mary J. Clark, a native of Lexington, of the same state, whose father, Woodson Clark, was the founder of Clarksburg, Ind., whither he emigrated about 1820. Hiram Bell lost his life by an accident, in 1879. but his widow survives. Of their eleven children, all of whom are liv- ing, Robert C. is the oldest. He was brought up on a farm, receiving a common school education, and academic training preparatory to the uni- versity of Michigan, at which he was graduated in 1868. Previous to this, he enlisted in the union army and after a short period of service in the field, was assigned to detached duty at Nashville, Tenn., where he remained until the close of the war. He provided the means for his education by teaching, and before graduation he was admitted to the bar in 1867. His first law partnership was with Hon. Alfred Kilgore, at Muncie, Ind., and during the time that that gentleman was United States attorney for Indiana, he held the position of assistant. In 1871, he made his home at Fort Wayne, and formed a partnership with Hon. John Colerick, which continued until the death of the latter. He then entered the firm of Coombs, Miller & Bell. Upon the removal of Miller to Indianapolis, his place in the firm was taken by Judge John Morris. This firm was changed upon the appointment of Judge Morris as supreme court commissioner, to Coombs, Bell & Morris, and upon the retirement of Mr. Coombs, the firm became as at present, Bell & Morris. Mr. Bell's record as an attorney is one of distinction, of continued and honorable successes, and he has a high reputation throughout the state. He has been attorney for the county commissioners of Allen county for the past ten years, is attorney for Indiana for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis railroad, and general attorney for the Ft. W., C., & L., and Whitewater
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railroads. He has always taken an active part in politics as did his father beforehand, on the side of the democratic party. He held the position of United States court commissioner, but resigned it upon elec- tion to the state senate, to which he was elected in 1874 and again in 1880. During his last term in that body, he occupied the important position of chairman of the Judiciary committee. In 1884 he was dele- gate at large for the state in the democratic convention at Chicago. Mr. Bell is prominent also in Masonic circles and in Oddfellowship, being a Master Mason, Knight Templar, and thirty-second degree Scottish Rite. During the year 1876 and 1877 he made an extended visit to Europe. Mr. Bell Was married April 5, 1868, to Clara E. Wolfe, daughter of Adam and Elizabeth Wolfe, of Muncie, Ind.
Henry Harrison Robinson, son of James H. Robinson, mentioned in another portion of this work, was born February 2, 1841, at Newark, N. J. He studied three years at Princeton college, leaving before graduation to enlist in the Fifty-fifth regiment Indiana volunteers. Afterward turning his attention to law, he was graduated with the de- gree of LL.B., at the university of Chicago, in 1865, and was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of Illinois in the same year. He prac- ticed his profession in Wisconsin two years, and upon his return to Fort Wayne, in 1867, he engaged in business with his father. On the 4th of July, 1868, he delivered an oration of striking merit, which was pub- lished at the request of comrades of the G. A. R., and in the following autumn he accepted the nomination as republican candidate for state representative and made an active canvass. Though not elected to the legislature, he filled the position of reading clerk of the house at that session with great ability and wrote popular letters to the Fort Wayne Gazette over the nom de plume of " Harrison." He was recommended by the state officers and republican legislators for the secretaryship of one of the territories, but did not press his application therefor. From 1870 to 1872 he published the Wabash Republican, then one of the leading weeklies of the state. While in Wabash he was appointed United States commissioner, and served in that capacity until his return to Fort Wayne. He also made a campaign in Wabash county for the legislature, but was again confronted by an impregnable adverse majority. Mr. Robinson returned to Fort Wayne in 1873, and engaged in the practice of law and journalism, being at one time editor of the Gazette. In the summer of 1874 he was urged to become a candidate for congress on the inde- pendent ticket, but declined the honor. On February 1, 1876, he closed his law office to take charge of the Robinson house, and he managed that popular establishment until 1882, since when he has occupied him- self in professional and literary pursuits. Mr. Robinson was an early admirer of Gen. Benjam Harrison and advocated his nomination for governor of Indiana in the Wabash Republican, now the Plaindealer, in I872.
Samuel L. Morris, one of the prominent attorneys of the city of Fort Wayne, is a native of Indiana, born at Auburn, September 15,
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1849. He is the son of Judge John Morris, of this city, and his resi- dence here began when the latter removed from Auburn to Fort Wayne, in 1857. He received his preparatory education in the Fort Wayne public schools, graduating from the high school in 1868. He then entered Princeton college, New Jersey, and was graduated by that institution in 1873. He then began reading law in the office of Withers & Morris, and in 1875 was admitted to practice. For six years he was a partner of Judge R. S. Taylor, and since then has been associated, first with W. H. Coombs, now with Robert C. Bell. Mr. Morris is an earnest republican. He was married at Columbus, Ohio, October 10, 1877, to Carrie E. Ambos, and they have three children: Gertrude E., Samuel L. and Jeannette.
Augustus A. Chapin, present judge of the superior court of Allen county, is a lineal descendant in the eighth generation of Deacon Samuel Chapin, who migrated from England to America about 1635, took the freeman's oath at Boston in 1641, and settled at Springfield, Massachusetts Colony, in 1642, where he died in 1675. Deacon Chapin was promi- nent in civil and church affairs, and is believed to be the progenitor of all persons bearing that name in the United States and Canada. Through the liberality of the late Chester W. Chapin, president of the Boston & Albany railroad, a statue to the memory of the Deacon was erected and unveiled with appropriate ceremonies at Stearns Park in Springfield, on Thanksgiving day, November 24, 1887. The figure is of bronze, of heroic size, resting upon a granite pedestal, and represents the sturdy old Puritan on his way to meeting on the Lord's day, with staff and Bible and a determined face set strongly toward his destination. The great grandfather of Judge Chapin was an officer in the revolutionary war, and at the battle of Bunker Hill, and the records show that eight bearing the family name in one regiment were in the battle of Lex- ington. At the close of the war his great-grandfather moved from Uxbridge, Mass., and settled in Windham county, Vt. The Chapin family is believed to have been originally of French descent, but on his mother's and grandmother's side it is of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent. In 1833, his father, Col. Alexander Chapin, of Wardsboro, Vt., with three of his neighbors, came west and selected a location in the north- western corner of the then unorganized county of Steuben, Ind. They came to the U. S. land office, at Fort Wayne, and having made their land entries purchased a dugout canoe and in it paddled down the Mau- mee to Toledo, Ohio, whence, via the Lake and Erie canal, they re- turned to their New England homes. In 1836, Col. Chapin removed with his family to his new location and with his associates laid out and platted the present village of Orland. The first settlers were almost exclusively from Vermont and for many years the village was known throughout the country as "Vermont Settlement." Col. Chapin was the first postmaster at the place, the first school fund commissioner of Steuben county, held several other positions of trust and died at Orland in 1849 at the comparatively early age of forty-four years, leaving a
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wife and five young children. Judge Chapin was born in Wardsboro, Windham county, Vt., and grew up from childhood in his father's home at Orland. His early education was obtained at a district common school and at a single term at what was then known as the Ontario col- legiate institute near Lima, in LaGrange county, Ind., but subsequently he prepared for college, and in 1855 entered the classical depart- ment of the university of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and graduated in the fall of 1859. He then read law and located at Angola, Steu- ben county, and followed his profession in that town until the spring of 1865, when he removed to Kendallville. He practiced law in Noble and adjoining counties until the fall of 1883, when he removed to the city of Fort Wayne. He has devoted his time chiefly to his pro- fession and has had but very little to do with politics or political life. In 1860 he was nominated on the republican ticket and elected and served one term as prosecuting attorney of the tenth judicial circuit, which then embraced ten counties in the northeastern cor- ner of the state of Indiana, Allen county being one of them. There were two terms of the circuit court each year, and the judge and prosecutor were obliged to go from most of the counties to others to hold court, either on horseback or in lumber wagons or the prima- tive hacks of that day. At different times he has held some minor offices such as township trustee, city clerk and school examiner. In the fall of 1886, he was nominated and elected judge of the superior court of Allen county, which position he still holds. November 1, 1863, he was married at Angola, to Almira Emerson. They have a family of five children, four daughters and one son. Judge Chapin is a member of the First Presbyterian church, of Fort Wayne, and is a ruling elder in that body.
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