Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky, Part 78

Author: Gresham, John M., Co., Pub
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago, Philadelphia, J. M. Gresham company
Number of Pages: 726


USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 78


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He has been appointed by the Kentucky State Medical Society as one of its delegates to the American Medical Association, annually, 1872-96, inclusive. In 1878, at the request of the Hon. James B. McCreary, governor of Kentucky, he was appointed by the President of the United States an honorary commissioner from Kentucky to the International Industrial Exposition at Paris, France. He represented the American Medical Association in the International Medical Congress of 1881, and in the British Medical Associa-


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tion at Ryde, Isle of Wight, August, 1881; was one of the vice presidents of the Section on Ophthalmology of the Ninth International Med- ical Congress, 1887; was honorary president of the Sections on Ophthalmology and Medical Pedagogics in the first Pan-American Medical Congress, Washington, D. C., September, 1893; delivered the annual oration of the Alumni Asso- ciation of the Medica-Chirurgical College of Phil- adelphia, April 7, 1887, and was made a fellow of that college; was president of the Mississippi Valley Medical Association, 1887-88; president of the Academy of Medicine and Surgery in the Polytechnic Society of Kentucky, 1880; chairman of the board of censors of the Kentucky State Medical Society, 1881-90; was president of the joint faculties of the medical and dental depart- . ments of the Central University of Kentucky, 1891-93. He is a member of the Mitchell Dis- trict Medical Society of Indiana, and in July, 1892, was elected its president, a position never before occupied by a non-resident of that state; is a member of the Filson Historical Club, and of the Watterson Club, of Louisville.


Dr. Reynolds is professor of ophthalmology, otology and medical jurisprudence in the Hos- pital College of Medicine, medical department of the Central University of Kentucky. He was professor of general pathology and hygiene from 1883 to 1890. He conducts the largest clinic in Louisville at the Hospital College every Monday and Thursday during the year, and has been surgeon to the eye and ear department of the Louisville City Hospital almost continuously since 1873. He is the author of many essays and clin- ical reports, embodying a great variety of sub- jects and many original devices in ophthalmic surgery.


On May 7, 1865, Dr. Reynolds married Miss Mary F. Keagan of Louisville. Their children are Dr. Dudley S. Reynolds, Jr., who lost his life by accident, at Collinsville, Illinois, October 22, 1894, and Mary A., wife of Professor P. Richard Taylor, M. D., dean of the faculty of the Hospital College of Medicine.


Mrs. Reynolds died March 3, 1876. He was married again, July 13, 1881, to Miss Matilda L. Bruce of Covington, Kentucky, daughter of


Hon. Eli M. Bruce, a distinguished member of the late Confederate States Congress. Of this union there are two children: Eli M. Bruce, aged thir- teen years, and Elizabeth, aged ten years.


M. HUNT McCLAIN, Attorney at Law of ,Henderson, Kentucky, was born in that city November 22, 1871, and is a son of the late Jackson and Carrie (Hunt) McClain. His father, Colonel Jackson McClain, was born in Hender- son October 5, 1816. At the age of twenty-three years his father died, leaving a large estate for his son to look after. The settlement of the estate was accomplished with marked ability and to the satisfaction of all concerned. He was a large land owner and gave attention to the cultivation of his crops for many years. He owned a number of slaves before the war, and their freedom, com- bined with other losses resulting from the war, crippled him financially for a time; but he over- came this by his indomitable will power, energy and business tact, and fully recovered and in- creased his fortune. He was a man of superior intellect and fine judgment who applied himself strictly to the management of his business, and this chief characteristic was in a large measure the secret of his success in life. He was inter- ested in a number of large enterprises and was a director in the Farmers' Bank, of which he was president for a time during the war. He was also a director in the Henderson & Nashville Railroad and was largely instrumental in making a success of that enterprise. For several years he was a member of the School Board and was frequently called upon to handle trust funds, settle estates, etc. In 1841 he married Mary Watson, who died leaving one child, Annie, who married the late Colonel A. H. Major. In 1869 Jackson McClain married Carrie S. Hunt of Warsaw, Illinois, who died leaving five sons: Jackson, born June 16, 1870; M. Hunt, born Novem- ber 22, 1871; William, born September 19, 1873; James Henry, born March 4, 1877, and George, born August 6, 1879. Mr. McClain's third wife, who survives him, was Mrs. Helen Trafton. He was paralyzed in 1888, an attack from which he did not fully recover, and died in 1892.


James McClain (grandfather) was a native of


2


JACKSON MCCLAIN.


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Henderson, a farmer and large land owner in the county, and was one of the most influential citi- zens of his day. He died in 1839. His wife (grandmother) was a Miss Butler, daughter of a Henderson County farmer.


M. Hunt McClain, after attending the Hender- son schools to the limit, received his collegiate education in the Cumberland College at Lebanon, Tennessee, graduating in the class of 1892. He was admitted to the bar and began the practice of his profession in Henderson in the same year. In the short time in which he has been in actual business he has devoted much of his time to the further equipment for the lifework before him, and at the same time has met with remarkable suc- cess in his vocation. He is the owner of one hun- dred and seventy-five acres of land on Green River Island, five miles from Henderson.


In 1892 he married Minnie Wilson Hoskins, daughter of W. T. Hoskins of Henderson. They have one child, Elizabeth Hunt, born April 14, 1893.


T THOMAS PATRICK CAROTHERS of New- port, a prominent attorney and Democratic politician, son of Robert Barr and Elizabeth (Abbott) Carothers, was born in Campbell Coun- ty, Kentucky, March 30, 1857. His father, Rob- ert Barr Carothers, is a native of Carlisle, Cum- berland County, Pennsylvania, who came to Ken- tucky in 1856, locating in Campbell County- which has been his place of residence ever since --- and is now actively engaged in contracting for and building water works. He is a Republican of liberal views and a man of superior intelligence and business ability.


Patrick F. Carothers (grandfather) was born in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, in 1802 and lived in Dayton, Ohio, where he was a railroad master mechanic and a man of great strength of character and something of a Democratic poli- tician, being greatly devoted to the interests of his party. He died in Dayton, Ohio, in 1880. The progenitor of the Carothers family in Amer- ica came from Scotland about one hundred and fifty years ago.


Elizabeth Abbott Carothers (mother) is a native of Covington, and was born before that part of


Kenton was taken from Campbell County. Her ancestors came from England more than two hundred years ago. Her father, Thomas Helm Abbott, was born in Mason and reared in Camp- bell county, where he was a prosperous farmer and a prominent member of the Baptist Church. He died in 1892 at the age of eighty-eight years.


Thomas P. Carothers was educated in the pub- lic schools of Newport and Cincinnati, and after leaving school was engaged in business with his father for several years. He then attended the Cincinnati Law School, from which he graduated in May, 1878. He at once began the practice of law in Newport and soon built up a large general practice, to which he is earnestly devoted.


He was a member of the state legislature in 1883-4; was elected city attorney in 1891 and 1892, and again in 1894 and 1895.


He has always taken quite an active interest in local and state politics, serving his time as a member of the Democratic state central commit- tee; was for several terms chairman of the Camp- bell County Democratic executive committee, and was a delegate to a Democratic state convention before he was twenty-one years of age.


He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, belongs to Robert Burns Lodge No. 163, Free and Accepted Masons, and member of the Kentucky Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.


Mr. Carothers was married in 1866 to Caroline Butler Powell, daughter of Charles Powell of Louisville, and they have two daughters: Mary Belle and Caroline Thomas. Mrs. Carothers is a member of the distinguished Butler family of Carrollton, of whom Gen. William O. Butler was the most conspicuous.


F RANCIS WILLIAM BUCKNER, deceased, for many years a prominent merchant of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was born in Virginia, in 1809. He came to Kentucky with his parents when he was a youth. His father's name was George B. Buckner, who married Martha Up- shaw, both of whom were natives of Virginia. Francis W. Buckner was for some time a mer- chant at Oak Grove, Christian County, and sub- sequently removed to Hopkinsville, where he con-


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tinued in the same line of business until his death. He was married April 9, 1835, to Sarah Gordon, daughter of Samuel Gordon, a native of Buck- ingham County, Virginia, who was one of the first settlers of Christian County, where he died in 1852. Mrs. Buckner was born December 2, 1819, and still lives to enjoy the results of her noble life work. She is the mother of four sons and one daughter, all of whom she brought up to be useful and influential citizens. Her sons are among the most prominent and respected men in the com- munity in which they live.


Samuel Gordon Buckner, her eldest son, a lead- ing tobacco merchant of Hopkinsville, was for some years the senior member of the firm of Buckner, Wooldridge & Co., tobacco warehouse- men of Hopkinsville, and is now a member of the firm of Abernathy & Co., one of the largest to- bacco houses in the city. He is a great admirer of fine horses and has from time to time owned some of the best thoroughbred horses in Ken- tucky. He married Kate Wooldridge, a most highly cultured lady and a member of one of the best families of Virginia, and they have six chil- dren: Thomas, Frank, Joseph, Sherwood, Rob- ert and Mattie Owsley.


Frank Buckner, second son, was born June 15, 1843. When the Civil war began he enlisted in the Oak Grove Rangers, commanded by Cap- tạin Woodward, and in 1862 was made second lieutenant in the Second Kentucky Cavalry, and served in that capacity until the war was ended. He was a brave soldier and uncomplainingly en- dured many hardships. He is now a tobacco commission merchant of Clarksville, Tennessee; a man of sterling worth, Mason and Knight of Pythias. He was married in 1867 to Hattie El- liott, daughter of Col. William H. Elliott, and they have four children: Elliott, Gordon W., Annie and Lewis.


Harry Buckner, third son, is one of the finest farmers in Christian County, and a man of wide influence in his section. He married Elizabeth Monroe, a most estimable lady, who died in 1889, leaving two little girls, who are living with their father and devoted grandmother.


Upshaw Buckner, youngest son, was born January 17, 1858, and is a farmer near Longview,


where he owns 800 acres of land, nearly all of which is in a high state of cultivation. He was married in 1894 to Mary Kelly.


Annie Wooldridge Buckner is the only daugh- ter of Francis W. and Martha (Upshaw) Buckner.


W ILLIAM P. M'CLAIN, a leading attorney of Henderson and native of that place, is the son of William McClain, who was also a na- tive of Henderson and an extensive and wealthy farmer of Henderson County. He had large pos- sessions in land and other property, including one hundred and eighty-five slaves, whom he set free of his own volition. His tobacco crop alone for one year sold for seventy-five thousand dollars. He married Virginia Pollitt of Henderson, daugh- ter of James Pollitt, one of the first merchants in Henderson, who died of cholera in 1832. Wil- liam McClain (father) died in 1885, aged sixty-one years.


James McClain (grandfather) was a native of Kentucky and his father was from Maryland. Col. Jackson McClain (uncle), brother of James, a colonel on Governor Powell's staff, died in 1891.


Virginia Cabell McClain (grandmother) was a member of the noted Cabell family of Virginia, who were descended from Pocahontas. She was left a widow and married Governor Dixon of Kentucky.


W. P. McClain, after his primary schooling in Henderson, attended Notre Dame College, in Indiana, graduating with the degree of A. B., in 1869. He then attended the University of Vir- ginia and graduated from the law department of that institution in 1872; remained there two years longer; was licensed to practice in the Supreme Court of Missouri; subsequently began the prac- tice of law in Henderson. He was elected city attorney in 1880, and resigned that office in 1881 to accept the office of county attorney, which he held for fourteen years consecutively, at the same time attending to a growing general practice in all of the courts.


He was a candidate before the Democratic con- vention for the nomination for congressman in 1894 and made a brilliant campaign, but was de- feated in the convention by a small vote. He received 9% of the II votes of the Henderson


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County delegation, while Mr. Vance, his local opponent, received 13 votes, throwing the nom- ination to John D. Clardy of Christian County. His friends will urge him to become the con- gressional candidate of his party in 1896.


Mr. McClain is one of the foremost men at the Henderson bar; a leader in the Democratic party and one of the prominent citizens of Henderson.


He was married to Mary Garland, daughter of Dr. Richard Garland of Henderson.


R EVEREND JAMES VENABLE LOGAN, D. D., LL.D., president of Central Univer- sity, Richmond, son of James Hervey and Mary Venable Logan, was born in Scott County, Ken- tucky, July 1I, 1835.


His father was a native of Shelby County, where he died, January 1, 1856, in his fifty-sixth year. He was a Presbyterian minister and had charge of Bethel Church in Scott County during the twenty years of his ministry.


Alexander Logan (grandfather) was a native of Augusta County, Virginia, and was one of the early settlers of Shelby County, Kentucky. He was a farmer by occupation and a leading member of the Presbyterian Church. There is an inter- esting account of the Logans in Thomas M. Green's "Historical Families of Kentucky."


Mary Venable Logan (mother) was born in Shelby County in 1810 and was a most exem- plary Christian woman of the Presbyterian faith. She survived her husband many years, and died in 1892.


James Venable (maternal grandfather) was a native of Prince Edward County, Virginia, who came to Kentucky with the pioneers and located in Shelby County, where he was a farmer and died well advanced in years. He was a soldier in the War of 1812. He was descended from the Huguenots, of which sturdy race much is said in other sketches in this work.


Rev. James V. Logan, D. D., was prepared for college in primary and classical schools in Scott County, and graduated from Center Col- lege in the class of 1854. He then attended the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Danville, finishing that course in 1860. He received and


accepted a call from the Harrodsburg congrega- tion and was installed as pastor of that church in October, 1860, remaining there until 1868, when he was released from that charge to assume the editorial chair of the Free Christian Com- monwealth at Louisville, and was engaged in that work until the union between the Synod of Kentucky and the Presbyterian Church South was effected. In 1872 the Kentucky Synod un- dertook to establish a school of learning and Dr. Logan was occupied in the work looking to that end until 1874, when his labors, in connection with others, culminated in the establishment of Central University, College of Philosophy, Let- ters and Science, at Richmond, Kentucky.


In the memorial of the Educational Convention held at Lexington, May 7 and 8, 1872, and which inaugurated the movement which resulted in the establishment of this university, the following lan- guage occurs: "It is the sense of this convention that steps be taken to at once establish, on a broad and liberal basis, an institution of the high- est order, under the auspices of the Synod of Kentucky, and thus carry out the earnest wishes of the fathers, as demonstrated by the establish- ment of Center College, now lost to this church."


Dr. Logan was elected to the chair of ethics, the only chair then appointed by the Synod. In 1880 he was elected to his present position, in which he presides over and conducts the deliber- ations of the faculty and sees that their decisions are enforced. He is also vice chancellor of the university and discharges the duties of the chan- cellor in his absence or inability to act. This institution has prospered greatly under the wise management and direction of President Logan, and now has over two hundred students enrolled. The university grounds are beautifully situated in the suburbs of Richmond, and are nearly square, about one-fourth of a mile to the side. The Hos- pital College of Medicine of Louisville, the Louis- ville College of Dentistry, the Collegiate Institute of Jackson, Kentucky, and Hardin Collegiate In- stitute of Elizabethtown are departments of Cen- tral University, and all are in a most flourishing condition. But Dr. Logan's duties are confined to the College of Philosophy, Letters and Science at Richmond, with which he has been connected


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since its inauguration in 1874, and of which he has been president for sixteen years past.


Dr. Logan was married (first) in December, 1863, to Martha E. S. McBrayer, daughter of Sandford McBrayer of Harrodsburg. She died January, 1888, leaving two sons and three daugh- ters: Sandford V. M .; Mary McBrayer; Martha E., wife of Franklin H. Kean of Louisville; Susan Magoffin, wife of Thomas Burnam of Richmond, and James Venable, Jr., who mar- ried Jessie Taylor of 'Richmond.


Dr. Logan was married (second) November 7, 1895, to Mrs. Mary Lee Herndon of Richmond.


The degree of D. D. was conferred upon Rev. James V. Logan in 1880 and the degree of LL. D. in 1890, by Hampden Sydney College of Virginia.


I. W. BERNHEIM, senior member of the large wholesale liquor house of Bernheim Broth- ers, Louisville, although a comparatively young man, has gone from the bottom to the top of the financial ladder; has won success against great and opposing odds, and for a number of years back has given a very large portion of his time, and liberally of his money, to aid other young men to whom fortune has made small endow- ment.


I. W. Bernheim is by no means an ordinary, or a commonplace man; he exhibits great genius as a manufacturer, a merchant, and as a money maker, but he also exhibits towards public and private charities, without regard to sect or creed, a liberality that stamps his as a philanthropic spirit.


With small opportunities for study, he is nev- ertheless in touch, and in sympathy with the best English and German literature, and no friend to culture could find in him aught to offend the most delicate taste. Although his boyhood and earlier manhood were fully taken up with the struggles of a pathetic poverty, a poverty that might have been expected to harden and deface the man, Mr. Bernheim has never allowed the love of the beau- tiful in his nature to die out, and since fortune has smiled upon him he has patronized art, not through affectation or stintingly, but liberally, and because he is fully persuaded that art is one of the most glorious fruits of human civilization. Among


the business men of Louisville, the name of I. W. Bernheim is an influential one; for it is synony- mous with success, and his indorsement of an en- terprise is recognized always as a most important factor, doing much to insure success. As a busi- ness man he is genial, exhibiting at all times a breadth, a comprehension and a confidence that at once stamps his as a master mind. He is an en- thusiast, loving his work, rejoicing in the devel- opment of his ideas, and glorifying in the reputa- tion, international in character, that he wins from a busy world. He is a man of detail, possessing in a phenomenal degree the faculty of keeping in touch with the most minute affairs of his great enterprise, and wisely holding that a really great business rests upon a foundation of details, even as the calcareous secretion deposited by coral in- sects forms the base for future continents.


When he landed in America from Freiburg, Germany (the place of his birth), in 1867, it was with but twenty francs in his pocket, and only to find that the house he was to work for had failed during his coming over. His indomitable nature had already developed, however, and quickly his small capital was invested in a stock of goods, shouldering which he started on foot, an itinerant trader, toward the, to him, unknown and bound- less West. A year later found him in Paducah, Ky., where he secured a position as bookkeeper for a house with which he remained until 1872. In 1869 he sent for his brother, Bernard, and three years later the house of Bernheim Bros., a small craft then, but a large one now, was launched upon the sea of commerce. It is interesting just here to note that I. W. and Bernard Bernheim had won already the esteem of Mr. Elbridge Palmer, president of the City National Bank of Paducah, a gentleman of wealth, culture, of discernment and of great liberality, and by his assistance they were enabled to enter upon a career that he has lived to see become in all particulars a successful one, and he has the further satisfaction of know- ing that Bernheim Bros. will never and could never forget the friend of their earlier and strug- gling days.


Isaac W. Bernheim feels that he owes much to America, and although he makes trips from time to time to Europe and to Oriental countries, he


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loves no country as he does this, and the spirit of no other people as he does the American spirit. It is, therefore, not only a duty to him, but a pleasure to subscribe liberally and systematically to all charitable enterprises with which he is fa- miliar, and to all movements that seem to him for the betterment of the masses, or for the improve- ment of our institutions.


To him the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Louisville owes its origin and its steady growth, and of this association he has been unani- mously elected president every year since it was founded. In giving, however, Mr. Bernheim is bound by no sectarianism nor controlled by any prejudice, for the struggles of his early days, and the sunshine that fell across his path when a kind word was spoken or a helping hand given, has inspired him with a firm belief in the "Fatherhood of God," and the "Brotherhood of man."


H TON. EPHRAIM T. LILLARD of Nicholas- ville, Kentucky, son of Stephen and Ro- sanna (Hudgons) Lillard, was born in Mercer County, Kentucky, June 23, 1847. His father, Stephen Lillard, was born in Lawrenceburg, Ken- tucky, June 23, 1808; was a farmer until 1861, when he went out as captain of a squadror. of volunteers at the time Morgan organized his forces, before any general organization had been effected in the South. After several months ser- vice he returned to his farm in Mercer County, where he was shot down in his own house by the Federal soldiers, but he survived his wounds and lived until September 30, 1889. He was an intense Democrat and often boasted that he never scratched his ticket. He was a member of the Methodist Church, and very domestic in his dis- position. He was the son of Ephraim Lillard, a native of Virginia, who came to Anderson Coun- ty, Kentucky, when quite young, and engaged in farming.


Mrs. Rosanna Hudgons Lillard, mother of Ephraim T. Lillard, was born in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, in 1816; was married to Stephen Lil- lard in 1832, and was the mother of twelve chil- dren, six sons and six daughters. She died Feb- ruary, 1896; was buried beside her hsuband at their old homestead in Mercer County, Kentucky.


Her father, William Hudgons, a native of Vir- ginia, married Miss Nancy Blake, a direct de- scendant of Lord Dudley Blake of England. William Hudgons removed from Virginia to Law- renceburg, Kentucky, and was several times elect- ed judge of the Anderson County Court; and afterwards removed to Richmond, Missouri, where he died.


Ephraim T. Lillard was educated in the com- mon schools and in the Confederate army, which he joined at the age of fourteen years. He was wounded at the battle of Cross Roads, near Wild Cat, Kentucky, and was in the battles of Perry- ville, Stone River and other engagements; was with John Morgan on his raid through Indiana and Ohio; was captured at Buffington Island, Ohio, imprisoned, and, after being exchanged, entered Lee's army, served through the war and received his parole at Appomattox Court House.




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