He was born in
Muskingum County, Ohio, September
7th 1819, was educated at South Hanover College, studied law and
completed his legal studies at Chambersburg, Pa., in 1843; settled in
Indiana and practiced his profession with success. In 1848, he was
elected to the State legislature, and declined a
re-election; was an active and useful member of the constitutional
convention of 1850; and was a representative in Congress from Indiana
from 1851 to 1855. He was appointed by president Pierce, in 1855,
commissioner of the general land office, in which he was continued by
President Buchanan until 1859 when re resigned. He was subsequently
elected a senator in Congress for the long term, commencing 1863, and
ending 1869, serving on the committees on claims, public buildings and
grounds, the judiciary, public lands and naval affairs. from 1869 to
1872, he practiced the law profession at Indianapolis. In 1872 he was
elected governor of the State of Indiana. His term expired in 1877. He
was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States
on the Democratic ticket with Samuel Tilden in 1876; elected Vice
President of the United States in 1884 on the Democratic ticket with
Grover Cleveland and served from March 4, 1885, until his death in
Indianapolis, Ind., November 25, 1885; interment in Crown Hill Cemetery.
He was born in Franklin
County Pa., February
12th, 1817. His father was a farmer, and he remained on the farm until
he was about 15 years of age. He went to school, (a classical academy,)
in Chambersburg, the county seat of his native county, some ten years,
and then went to Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburgh, Pa., where he
remained about two years, but did not graduate. Studied law at
Gettysburgh, in the office of Messrs. Stevens & Smyser, the firm
being composed of the late Thaddeus Stevens and the late Daniel M.
Smyser; was admitted to the bar at Gettysburgh in 1839, and practiced
there two years. Came to Indiana in 1841, and settled in Evansville,
where he practiced until after the commencement of the rebellion. He
was elected to the lower house of the general assembly of Indiana in
1845, and served one session. Elected judge of the courts of common
pleas for the district composing the counties of Vanderburgh and
Warrick, in 1852, and served about one year and resigned. He was
nominated in his absence, and without his knowledge, for Lieutenant
Governor on the Republican ticket in 1856, senator Morton being the
candidate for Governor on the same ticket, headed by Willard for
Governor, and Hammond for Lieutenant Governor, was, however, elected.
Appointed by Governor Morton Colonel of 1st Indiana
Cavalry. it being 28th Regiment Indiana Volunteers, in July 1861;
organized the regiment, and was mustered into the service in August
1861; remained in the service until September, 1864; served in the
field in the southwest under Generals J.C. Fremont, Frederick Steel,
S.R. Curtis, A.P. Hovey, and others, until April, 1863. when he was
ordered by the War Department to Indianapolis to organize the Provost
Marshal General Bureau for the State of Indiana. Still retaining the
place and rank of Colonel of the 1st Indiana Cavalry, he performed the
duties of acting assistant provost marshal general for Indiana, from
April, 1863, to the latter part of 1864, and as such, having the
supervision of the enrollment and draft. He was at the same time, by
virtue of his position, superintendent of volunteer recruiting, and had
charge of all the mustering officers on duty in this State. In June or
July, 1864, the Republican State Central Committee unanimously tendered
him the candidacy for the office of Lieutenant Governor, to fill a
vacancy caused by the declension of General Nathan Kimball, who had
been nominated for that office by the convention. He was elected,
senator Morton being elected at the same time, on the same ticket. He
presided over the Senate during the session commencing in January,
1865. In November, 1865. governor Morton convened the legislature in
extra session, and immediately thereafter went to Europe in quest of
his health, and was gone five months. During this absence of the
governor Mr. Baker acted as governor. In January, 1867, governor Morton
was elected to the United States Senate, and immediately resigned his
office, whereupon the duties of the office of governor devolved upon
the lieutenant governor, and, Mr. Baker, as such, performed them during
the residue of Governor Morton's term. Mr. Baker was elected governor
of Indiana in October, 1868, and served as such until succeeded by
Governor Hendricks, in January 1873. He acted as governor, (including
the five months of Governor Morton's absence in Europe,) for about six
years and five months. Since the termination of his official life he
has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession in
Indianapolis.
CYRUS NUTT, D.
D., LL. D.
He was born in Trumbull County, Ohio on September 4, 1814. His parents were well versed in the
common branches of education and he was taught reading, writing,
arithmetic, geography and grammar at home. He did attend the
country school in his neighborhood when it was in session, which was
about three months of the year. He attended an academy to prepare
himself for college and in 1836 graduated from Alleghany College, Meadville, PA., where he was immediately appointed
preceptor of the preparatory department in the same institution. After
holding this position for six months he was elected to the charge of
the preparatory department of Indiana Asbury University which had just been chartered by the
legislature of Indiana.
Mr. Nutt was converted at a camp
meeting when he was in his nineteenth year. He was licensed to exhort,
and then to preach and he preached his first sermon at Greencastle soon
after his arrival.
The first meeting of the trustees
of Indiana Asbury University was held in March, 1837, at which time Dr.
Nutt was elected preceptor of the preparatory department. It
required seven or eight days at that time to make the trip from Meadville, where Mr. Nutt then resided, to Greencastle
by the most speedy mode of travel, which was stage or steamboat.
Dr. Nutt would leave Meadville about the seventh of May and travel by stage
to Pittsburg and then by steamboat to Cincinnati and they by stage to Greencastle where he
would arrive on the sixteenth of the same month. He would be
forced to walk from Putnamville to Greencastle as there was no public
conveyance from the outside world to Greencastle
Dr. Nutt entered upon his duties
at Greencastle on the June 5, 1837; commencing the preparatory department in a
small, one-story brick building, with only two rooms; the larger of
which was occupied by the town school. At the meeting of the
board of trustees in September of 1837, Dr. Nutt was elected professor
of languages. In 1841 he was elected professor of the Greek
language and literature, and Hebrew, which position he held until 1843,
when he resigned and took pastoral work in Indiana Conference, and was
appointed to Bloomington station. He had been admitted into the
Conference at its session in Rockville, in 1838, and ordained deacon by Bishop
Soule, at Indianapolis in 1840, and elder by Bishop Morris, at the
conference in Centerville, in 1842. He remained in charge of Bloomington station two years, and the year following
was at Salem. In the fall of 1846 he returned to
the university, having been elected to the chair of Greek language and
literature. In 1849, Dr. Nutt was elected President of Fort Wayne
Female College, holding this position for one year after which he
resigned and accepted the presidency of Whitewater College, at Centerville, Indiana in the fall of 1850. The number of
students increased from one hundred and forty to more than three
hundred under his administration. During the whole of this time
he held the position either of trustee or Conference visitor to Indiana Asbury University and took a lively interest in all the
affairs of the church. He resigned from the head of Whitewater College after five years to enter again upon the
work of the ministry and at the session of the North Indiana
Conference, at Goshen, in 1855, he was appointed presiding elder
on the Richmond district, where he remained two years. In the fall of 1857 he was elected to the
chair of Mathematics in Indiana Asbury University. He was also elected vice-president of
the Faculty.
In
1839 Dr. Nutt received the
degree of A. M. from his Alma Mater, Allegheny College. In 1859 he received the degree of
Doctor of Divinity from the Ohio Wesleyan University; and in 1873, the degree of Doctor of Laws,
from Hanover College, and also from the University of Missouri. In 1860 he was delegate to the
General Conference, held at Buffalo, from Northern Indiana Conference,
leading his delegation, and served in that session as member of the
committee on the Episcopacy, and also on the committees of Education,
Judiciary, and Lay Delegation. He also served as a delegate from
Indiana Conference to the General Conference, which met at Brooklyn, New York in 1872. He was elected secretary of
the committee on the State of Church, besides being a member and doing service on
several other important committees.
In
1860, Dr. Nutt was elected
president of the Indiana State University at Bloomington. Five new chairs have been added to it
course of instruction, a medical department, and a department of civil
engineering have been created. The number of faculty have been
increased from six to twenty-six as the number of students from about
one hundred to three hundred and fifty-eight. The annual income
increased from $5,600 to $35,500. The number of alumni from two
hundred and forty two to nine hundred seventy three, and the library
increased from one thousand five hundred volumes to nearly eight
thousand volumes. A new and beautiful building has been completed
and all the facilities for instruction have been greatly enlarged.
Dr. Nutt was elected president of
Iowa State University
in 1842, but declined to accept. He was a member of the State
Teachers Convention in 1854, which organized the State Teachers
Association, and established the Indiana School Journal. He was
elected and served as president of the State Teachers Association in
1863, and has been a member of the State Board of Education for nine
years. Dr. Nutt has been eminently successful both as a minister
of the gospel and an educator, and will leave upon the generation that
comes after him an abiding impression for good.
(Contributed by Mary Hoegh at greshoeg@metc.net)
BARNABAS C. HOBBS, LL.D.
He was born near Salem, Washington county, Indiana on October
4, 1815, and was
educated in the log schoolhouse of the day. At the age of
eighteen he was prompted to enter the county seminary, under the
instruction of John I. Morrison, who was at that time a leading
educator in the State. Here he became acquainted with algebra,
geometry, and land surveying. His studies included Latin and
Greek in addition to the common school course. He made his home
during this time with Benjamin Parke, United States judge for the district of Indiana and was
his office companion at the time of his death in 1834
While still teaching in his
native county in 1837, he became acquainted with William H. McGuffey,
the author of the Eclectic Readers, who opened the way for him to enter
the Cincinnati college, over which he then presided,
teaching a part of the time to meet his expenses. He was here
under the mathematical instruction of Prof. O. M. Mitchell.
During this time of his life he became acquainted with Prof. E. D.
Mansfield, Prof. Drury and Drs. Drake, Harrison, Rodgers and McDowell
of the medical department, in which he took an academic course in
comparative anatomy and chemistry.
He was soon after employed as
principal teacher at Mount Pleasant boarding school in Jefferson county, Ohio. There he remained nearly four years
until his marriage, when a favorable opening induced him to establish a
school in Richmond, Indiana, where he moved in the spring of 1843.
After a successful span of four years in that position he accepted the
superintendency of Friend
s boarding school, now Earlham college which he held for two years.
In 1851 he moved to Parke county
to take the presidency of Bloomingdale academy, where he continuously
and successfully labored for nearly sixteen years. At the
extra session of the legislature of 1865 a law was passed creating a
State normal school, an institution for which he had long and earnestly
labored. He was appointed to a position of trustee by Governor
Morton in 1866. He was delegated by the board of trustees to
visit the several normal schools in the United States to obtain the necessary information from
their experience, preparatory to the construction of a building adapted
to the best ideal of such institutions.
During the summer of the same
year he was chosen the first president of Earlham college, and
professor of English literature. He held these positions for two
years until elected superintendent of public instruction in 1868.
He applied himself earnestly and
faithfully to the duties of his office, and in his county visits,
public addresses and official reports, pressed upon the people the
necessity of additional tax for the extension of the school term in
rural districts; of the necessity of county superintendents; of
modifications in our school laws that would give relief to county
officers in making enumeration
s, distributions of school funds and reports. His goal was that
the common school would grade properly into the high school, and the
high school into the college and State university; also for the rights
of colored citizens to the benefits of the school funds. During
his term of office, the resignations of members of both branches of the
legislature prevented the realization of his wishes. However, he
had the pleasure of seeing their approval by subsequent legislation.
As chairman of a committee of the
National Superintendents Association at Washington, he advocated such
national legislation as would equalize the school funds of the States,
especially with reference to Southern States where school funds had
been lost by war.He
was one of the earnest advocates of reform schools for both
boys and girls, and for prison reform. He had the pleasure of
witnessing the successful inauguration of the first, and of
anticipating such legislation as will make our State and city prisons
self- supportive, educational and reformatory.
He
is one of the trustees and
incorporators of the Terre Haute Industrial School, founded by the endowment of Chauncy Rose,
Esp., and has had the charge of selecting and sustaining, at the State
normal school, about twenty young ladies by the liberal provision of
the same gentleman. These have been chosen from about thirty
different counties, and the entire number so aided has been above sixty.When his term of service as State
superintendent closed, he returned to his pleasant home at
Bloomingdale, where he resumed the presidency of Bloomingdale academy.While in early life he was unable, for
want of means, to complete his
regular college course, his success in his chosen profession secured
for him an honorary master
s degree by Wabash college in 1858, and the degree of Doctor of
Laws by the State university in 1870. The latter institution has
twice honored him by offering him the professorship of English
literature, however, at the time he considered would be attended by too
much pecuniary sacrifice for him to accept.
In
1872 he was employed by the
State geologist to make a geological survey of Parke
county. His report may be found in the Geological Reports for
that year. While he maintains a membership in the Society of
Friends, and has been approved by them as a minister for more than
twenty years, he is liberal and tolerant towards all. His
religious sentiments are of the full evangelic type, recognizing men of
every nation, race and color as brethren
(Contributed by Mary Hoegh at greshoeg@metc.net)
He was the son
of John and
Agnes (Rope) Kirkwood, and was born in Harford County, Maryland,
September twenty seventh. 1914 His youth .was spent in the ordinary
routine of farm labor, with very limited opportunities for acquiring
even an English education. In 1884 he entered the York County Academy,
at York, Pennsylvania, where, first as a student, and afterward as
teacher of mathematics, he continued till 1848, when He was elected
principal, of the Lancaster
(Pa.) High School. Col. John W. Forney and Hon. Thaddeus Stevens
were
then directors of the Lancaster city schools, and Dr. Kirkwood. still
speaks with evident satisfaction of his early official relations with
the subsequently distinguished journalist and statesman.
In 1849, while residing in Pottsville, Pa, Dr.
Kirkwood published his Analogy between the Periods of Rotation of the
Primary Planets, which was favorably received by the scientific public.
In 1851 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society,
at Philadelphia, and in the same year to the chair of mathematics in
Delaware college. From 1856 to the present time with the exception of a
brief absence in Canonsburg, Pa. he was occupied the position which he
now holds in the University- of Indiana.
Dr. Kirkwood has been a frequent contributor to
our
scientific journals, and some of his memoirs have
attracted much attention, both in Europe and America. His paper
published in the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society of
London, VoL XXIX., was the first to indicate the physical cause of the
gap in Saturn's ring, and of similar chasms in the zone of asteroids.
The degree of A M. was conferred on Dr.
Kirkwood, in
1849, by Washington College, and that of LL. D. in 1852, by the
University of Pennsylvania
He was born in
Martinsburg, Virginia, June
seventeenth, 1826. His paternal ancestors came from Ireland. His
grandfather, Joseph Shanks, entered the Continental army immediately
after the battle of Lexington, and served through the Revolution,
participating in the battle of Yorktown. His father, Michael Shanks,
was a soldier in the war of 1812, and an elder brother served through
the Mexican war.
His father left the State of Virginia in 1839, on
account of opposition to slavery, and settled in the wilderness of Jay
county, Indiana. The subject of this sketch bad few advantages of
schools, either in Virginia or in his forest home in the Weal. His
parents being in limited circumstances, struggling to make a home in a
new country, their son participated in their labors, hardships, and.
privations. From his fifteenth to his seventeenth year he suffered
intensely from an attack of rheumatism, much of his time being
helpless, and while in this condition studied industriously under his
father, who was a good scholar. Regaining his health, he pursued his
studies during all the waking hours which were not occupied pied with
the severest manual labor. He studied by fire-light at home, and by
camp-fires in the woods. He read in the highway while driving his team,
and carried his book when he plowed. He worked at the carpenters trade
in Michigan to earn money with which to pursue the study of law. In
1847 he commenced the. study of law in his own county, working for his
board, and devoting every third week of his time to labor for his
father on the farm.
He was admitted to practice law in 1850, and during
that year was acting auditor of his county. In the autumn following he
was elected prosecuting attorney of the
circuit court by the
unanimous vote of both political parties. In 1860 he was elected
representative from Indiana to the thirty seventh congress, and took
his seat July fourth, 1861, when congress was assembled by proclamation
of President Lincoln to take measures for the prosecution of the war;
he voluntarily fought in. the first battle of Bull Run, July
twenty first, 1861, and by great efforts succeeded in rallying a
portion of the fugitives from the ill fated field. For his conduct, on
this occasion, he was promoted, and after. wards accepted an
appointment on the staff of Gen. Fremont, and served with him in
Missouri, and afterwards with Gen. Hunter. until, the re-assembling of
congress. After the session of congress closed he connected himself
with Fremont's Staff, in West Virginia.
In the summer of 1863, Mr. Shanks raised the seventh
Indiana regiment of volunteer cavalry, and on. the sixth of December,
was ordered with them from Indianapolis to the field.In the following
February, he was breveted a brigadier general for
meritorious conduct. Having given efficient service until some time
after the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he was mustered out in
September, 1865, at Hempstead, Texas.
In. 1866, Mr. Shanks was elected to the fortieth
congress, during which he served on the committees on the militia and
Indian affairs. In. the forty first congress Mr.Shanks was chairman of
the committee on the militia, and a member of the committee on Indian
affairs and on freedmen's affairs. During his public life Mr. Shanks
has been an
industrious worker.
He removed from New
York, his native State, to
Logansport, Indiana, in 1843. He has been twice elected to the IndIana
legislature, and has been several tunes elector of president and vice
president of the United States. He held, for several years, a
professorship in Rush Medical College, Chicago, Ill., and resigned that
position. to take a seat in congress. He was four years In the national
house of representatives, defeating in the race for his second term the
Hon. Schuyler Colfax. He (Mr. F.) was subsequently four years in. the
United States senate. Although always a decided democrat, be has twice
dissented from the action of the majority of his party. In the
triangular contest for the presidency between Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Douglas,
and Mr. Breckenridge, he supported the last named gentleman, influenced
thereto by a belief that his election would prevent the threatened
civil war. And again when the majority of his party supported Mr.
Greeley for tie presidency against Gen. Grant, he voted for Charles
O'Connor. nor. He opposed alike the ultra anti-slavery men of the
North, and pro slavery men of the South, aver. ring that the former
gave the pre. text for dissatisfaction in the South, while the latter
exaggerated the pretext to unreasonably increase the dissatisfaction.
He thought both, though antipodes in profession, men seeking the same
end civil war and dissolution of the Union. He appears to have foreseen
the war some years before its occurrence, and warned southern members
of congress of its consequences to their section: portraying those
consequences, in one of his speeches in congress, much as they
subsequently occurred. When the war came, he raised a regiment (forty
sixth Indiana volunteers), and at their head entered the federal
service. He was soon placed in command of a brigade with which be
participated in the siege and capture of Fort Thompson, at New Madrid,
Mo. His command likewise composed part of General Palmer
s division, which, subsequent to the capture of Fort Thompson,
blockaded the Mississippi at Ruddle
s Point, to prevent reinforcements and supplies reaching Island 10
from below. Afterwards he was detached with his brigade from General
Pope
s command to co-operate with Commodores Foote and Davis in the siege of
Fort Pillow, and conducted the siege so vigorously as to materially aid
in the forced abandonment of the fort by the confederate troops. The
next day after its capture he descended the river and captured Memphis,
holding it for some days, untill the arrival of General Shanks, of the
forty seventh Indiana. He then, with his own regiment, embarked for the
White River, Arkansas, where he rendered valuable service. Dr. Fitch is
now a well known and prominent resident of Logansport, Indiana.
