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AGLESFIELD, CARINA CAMPBELL (MRS. JAMES T.): 1856-1925.

Carina Campbell was born in Monroe, Mich., in 1856. In 1879 she was graduated from the University of Michigan, later receiving her A.M. degree. Following graduation she taught Greek in the University of Kansas. She was also an accomplished musician. In Indianapolis she was active in literary and cultural organizations. She died in Indianapolis in 1925.

page: 96[View Page 96]

Information from the Indianapolis Public Library.

EARLY, SAMUEL STOCKWELL: 1827-?

Samuel Stockwell Early , only child of Jacob D. and Mary Stockwell Early, was born in Flemingsburg, Ky., on July 12, 1827. His mother died a few months after his birth, and he was reared by his grandmother. He was educated at an academy in Flemingsburg and entered Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University in 1841 and graduated in 1844, at the age of seventeen. After spending two or three years working for his father in Yerre Haute, Ind., he went to Europe in 1849 and spent fifteen months visiting different countries. His interest in art led him to all the famous art galleries in Europe. During this time he also contributed a series of letters to the WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE of Cincinnati .

On his return he went into partnership with his father and from 1856 to 1862 he served as president of the Prairie City Bank of Terre Haute and from 1864 to 1871 as a director of the National State Bank. He was also president of St. Agnes Hall, a female seminary in Terre Haute , from 1864 to 1868. In 1872 he moved to Baltimore , where he was editor and proprietor of the BALTIMORE BULLETIN, a weekly literary and art journal, but he returned to Terre Haute in 1876 and in 1878 became secretary of Rose Polytechnic Institute, serving until 1884.

Information from De Pauw University's Alumnal Record, 1920, and Representative Men of Indiana, Vol. 11.

  • The Early Family: a History of the Family of Early in America; Being the Ancestors and Descendants of Jeremiah Early, Who Came from the County Donegal, Ireland, and Settled in What Is Now Madison County, Virginia, Early in the Eighteenth Century; Arranged for Publication by Robert Stockwell Hatcher. Albany, N. Y., 1896.Search "The Early Family: a History of the Family of Early in
                                            America; Being the Ancestors and Descendants of Jeremiah Early, Who Came
                                            from the County Donegal, Ireland, and Settled in What Is Now Madison County,
                                            Virginia, Early in the Eighteenth Century; Arranged for Publication by
                                            Robert Stockwell Hatcher" by EARLY, SAMUEL STOCKWELL: 1827-? in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

EDGERTON, WALTER: 1806-1879.

Walter Edgerton was born in Ohio in 1806 and removed to Henry County, Ind., in 1829. He farmed there and in 1836 taught school.

A conservative Quaker, he was a sharp critic of current fads, such as phrenology, and of changes in the Quaker faith. He was a noted and an active abolitionist, and he was active in the intra-church discussion over slavery, which resulted in the separation in the Indiana Society of Friends in 1832.

His writings were widely read and exercised considerable influence. He died in Minneapolis in 1879.

Information from the Spiceland Public Library and the Earlham College Library.

  • A Brief Review of Certain Phrenological Works of O. S. Fowler. Newport, Ind., 1848.Search "A Brief Review of Certain Phrenological Works of O. S.
                                        Fowler" by EDGERTON, WALTER: 1806-1879. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust
  • A History of the Separation in Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends … Cincinnati, 1856.Search "A History of the Separation in Indiana Yearly Meeting of
                                            Friends …" by EDGERTON, WALTER: 1806-1879. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust
  • Modern Quakerism Examined and Contrasted with That of the Ancient Type. Indianapolis, 1876.Search "Modern Quakerism Examined and Contrasted with That of the
                                            Ancient Type" by EDGERTON, WALTER: 1806-1879. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust
  • Walter Edgerton's Disownment by Spiceland Monthly Meeting, Within Indiana Yearly Meeting. 1877.Search "Walter Edgerton's Disownment by Spiceland Monthly
                                            Meeting, Within Indiana Yearly Meeting" by EDGERTON, WALTER: 1806-1879. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

EDSON, HANFORD A.: 1837-1920.

Hanford A. Edson , son of Dr. Freeman Edson and descendant of an old New England family, was born in Scottsville, N. Y., on Mar. 14, 1837. He was educated at home and in the district school before he entered Williams College, from which he graduated in 1855. After graduation, he taught for three years, then studied at Union Theological Seminary and at the University of Halle in Germany .

In 1861 he returned to the U. S. and took up his duties as a minister, coming to Indianapolis in 1864 as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church. He was married on July 16, 1867, to Helen M. Rockwood of Indianapolis . Hanover College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1873.

Information from Representative Men of Indiana, Vol. I, and the Indianapolis Public Library.

  • The Church God's Building; a Historical Discourse, Delivered December 22, 1867, at the Opening of the New Chapel of the Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis, 1868.Search "The Church God's Building; a Historical Discourse,
                                            Delivered December 22, 1867, at the Opening of the New Chapel of the Second
                                            Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana" by EDSON, HANFORD A.: 1837-1920. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust
  • Contributions to the Early History of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana; Together with Biographical Notices of the Pioneer Ministers. Cincinnati, 1898.Search "Contributions to the Early History of the Presbyterian Church
                                            in Indiana; Together with Biographical Notices of the Pioneer
                                        Ministers" by EDSON, HANFORD A.: 1837-1920. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902.

" Edward Eggleston (Dec. 10, 1837-Sept. 2, 1902), novelist, historian, was born at Vevay, Ind. His father, Joseph Cary Eggleston, lawyer and politician, was a page: 97[View Page 97] graduate of the College of William and Mary and belonged to a family of some importance in Virginia from colonial times; his mother, Mary Jane Craig, was the daughter of Capt. George Craig, Western frontiersman and Indian fighter. Before his father's death, in 1846, the family spent much time at the Craig farm, several miles from Vevay, so that the future author of The Hoosier Schoolmaster early attended a country school. Some three years in Vevay followed, and then young Eggleston was sent for a long visit in Decatur County, where he enriched his knowledge of uncouth Hoosier dialect and backwoods manners. Meantime, on Dec. 25, 1850, his mother had married Williamson Terrell, a Methodist preacher, and Eggleston returned home in March 1851, not to Vevay, but to New Albany . There the family remained a half year, then spent some two years at Madison , then returned to Vevay, in 1853. Here Eggleston liked the high school and flourished under the special favor of the locally famed Mrs. Julia Dumont, who pleased him with the assurance that he was destined to be an author. In June 1854, he was off for thirteen months in Virginia , spent partly with relatives and partly at the Amelia Academy where his accidental discovery of The Sketch Book began the slow process of liberation from his almost fanatical devotion to a narrow religious creed (FORUM, August 1887). Meantime his growing hatred of slavery caused him to refuse the offer of a course at the University of Virginia; indeed, ill health prevented his attending any college, and his formal schooling was now at an end.

"After his return to Indiana he was employed for some time as a Bible agent; but his health, always precarious, was soon completely broken. Fearing death from consumption, he set out westward, but suddenly changed his course for Minnesota , where during the summer of 1856 he restored his health by vigorous labor in the open air; then, after an abortive attempt to reach Kansas and aid the anti-slavery cause, he returned home. Some six months (November 1856-April 1857) on a Methodist circuit in southeastern Indiana wrought, however, new disaster to his health, and he was back in Minnesota the following spring, this time for nine years: he was Bible agent (1858-59); he was pastor of small churches at Traverse and St. Peter (1857-58), St. Paul (1859-60 and 1862-63), Stillwater (1860-61), and Winona (1864-66); and he tried a variety of other occupations, always frequently interrupted by ill health (Forty-third Annual Report of the American Bible Society, 1859; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1857-66; and Eggleston Papers). Early in 1866 he gave up the ministry for journalism and removed to Evanston, Ill. He was associate editor … June 1866-February 1867 … of the LITTLE CORPORAL of Chicago . In February 1867, he became editor of the SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, soon renamed the NATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER; and even after he had left the West he continued as its corresponding editor, until December, 1873. Meantime, as early as 1868, he was announced as 'a contributor to all the leading juvenile periodicals in the United States ' (SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, vol. III, no. 12); and Mr. Blake's Walking-Stick (1870) was the first of several small volumes of fantastic fairy lore or moral tales of too sentimental children.

"Migrating eastward, Eggleston began in May 1870 a period of about fourteen or fifteen months on the INDEPENDENT ( New York ), of which he had for some time been Western correspondent (INDEPENDENT, May 12, 19, 1870; and SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, September 1873). His editorial connection from August 1871, with the then moribund HEARTH AND HOME … seems to have lasted only a year, but served both to revive the magazine and to start Eggleston on his career as a popular novelist destined to have an important influence in turning American literature toward realism. His first novel The Hoosier Schoolmaster (HEARTH AND HOME, Sept. 30-Dec. 30, 1871), was already marked by the sentimental quality as well as by the realism of his later writings… The Ohio River country is the setting of The End of the World (HEARTH AND HOME, Apr. 20-Sept. 7, 1872), a story of religious fanaticism and racial prejudice. In The Mystery of Metropolisville (HEARTH AND HOME, Dec. 7, 1872-Apr. 26, 1873) he turned to the Minnesota frontier and made, apparently, some use of Dickens's method in his humorous character portrayals. The Circuit Rider (CHRISTIAN UNION, Nov. 12, 1873-Mar. 18, 1874), with its setting in southern Ohio at the beginning of Madison's administration, pictures the devoted members of a religious fraternity of which Eggleston himself was once a member. Of the later novels, Roxy (SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, November 1877-October 1878) dealt with unusual frankness, for the period, with the problem of marital infidelity against a background of old Vevay life; The Hoosier Schoolboy (ST. NICHOLAS, December 1881-April 1882) preached a sentimental sermon against the harshness of rural schools … "Eggleston's religious enthusiasm, long since waning, finally spent itself entirely during his pastorate (1874-79) of the non-sectarian Church of Christian Endeavor, in Brooklyn (NEW YORK TRIBUNE, Dec. 27, 1877; page: 98[View Page 98] NEW YORK TIMES, Dec. 27, 1879). At the same time with the end of his religious zeal came also the change of his main literary interest from fiction to history. He had, indeed, early come to look upon the novel as a means of making 'a contribution to the history of civilization in America' …

"From 1870 until his first voyage to Europe, late in 1879, Eggleston's home was in Brooklyn ; from 188: until his death he lived at Joshua's Rock, on Lake George, but usually spent his winters in New York or other cities and delivered many lectures. His first wife, Lizzie Snider, whom he had married at St. Peter, Minn. Mar. 18, 1858, died in 1889 (Eggleston Papers), and on Sept. 14, 1891, he married Frances Goode, of Madison, Ind. (NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 15, 1891). His last years, like his earlier life, were troubled with serious illness. Some three years before his death he suffered a stroke of apoplexy from which he never really recovered. Another stroke in August 1902 was followed by his death on Sept. 2 of that year."

Condensed from R. L. R., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. VI.

EGGLESTON, GEORGE CARY: 1839-1911.

" George Cary Eggleston (Nov. 26, 1839-Apr. 14, 1911), journalist, novelist, was born at Vevay, Ind., the son of Joseph Cary Eggleston and Mary Jane Craig. After an early youth of play and reading guided by his mother … he went to school at Madison ( Ind. ) and was for something over a year at Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University. Straitened circumstances, however, forced him when only sixteen to teach school at Riker's Ridge and to meet those amusing and trying experiences that inspired The Hoosier Schoolmaster, page: 99[View Page 99] of his brother Edward. When seventeen, having inherited his family's plantation in Amelia County, Va., he was whisked into an aristocratic, genial, and leisurely life that astonished and charmed him. He then studied law at Richmond College and made friends with the Richmond literary group, especially with John Eston Cooke. In 1861, with many other gentlemen horsemen he saw service in northern Virginia in the Ist Virginia Cavalry, first under Col. J.E.B. Stuart and later under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. In the autumn he transferred to the field artillery on the South Carolina coast, but in 1863, he was back north in Longstreet's artillery… In 1864 his battery served as sharpshooters through the bloody siege of Petersburg ; and Eggleston, with his brother Joseph as second in command, was in charge of a mortar fort.

"Immediately after the war he went to Cairo, Ill., to take a position with a banking and steamboating firm; and there on Sept. 9, 1868, he married Marion Craggs. Later he practised law in Mississippi . The work in both places, however, was uncongenial; accordingly, in 1870, with his wife and one child, he went to New York . Here he began a newspaper and editorial career that lasted, except for short intervals, for twenty years. After a year first as a reporter and later as an editorial writer on the BROOKLYN DAILY UNION under the guidance of Theodore Tihon, and after a brief period of free-lance writing, he joined his brother Edward in securing good writers for the HEARTH AND HOME, bringing among others Frank R. Stockton to the staff. He was editor-in-chief in 1874 when the magazine was sold. A free-lance again, he wrote for the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, GALAXY, APPLETON's JOURNAL, and other periodicals. In 1875 he became a member of the editorial staff of the NEW YORK EVENING POST, and a chat with William Cullen Bryant soon thereafter brought him the POST'S literary editorship … In 1889, after eight years in which he had been literary adviser to Harper & Brothers, and literary editor and later editor-in-chief of the COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, he was called to the editorial staff of the NEW YORK WORLD and there for eleven years he wrote under Joseph Pulitzer's inspiring guidance, being his mouthpiece in many of the WORLD'S political campaigns.

"In the quieter periods of his New York life, Eggleston had written excellent non-morallzing boys' stories with his own boys as critics., and he had done much magazine writing and miscellaneous book-making. Now, refusing to yield further to the 'call of the wild,' as he termed the lure of journalism and retiring to his Lake George home every summer, he zestfully wrote a score or more of works: boys' stories, history, biography, autobiography, and especially novels. Some of the latter he based upon experience in Indiana , on the Mississippi , and in South Carolina . His most glamorous memories, however, were of pre-war Virginia … The characters in these books are too perfect to seem real, but Eggleston always denied having idealized them …"

Mr. Eggleston died on Apr. 14, 1911.

Condensed from A. L. H., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. VI.

EHRMANN, MAX: 1872-?

Max Ehrmann , son of Max and Margaret von Ehrmann, was born at Terre Haute, Ind., on Sept. 26, 1872, and was educated at De Pauw University (Ph.B., 1894) and Harvard. An internationally known writer of poetry, fiction, and drama, he was also a contributor to DRAMA, CAXTON'S, WOMAN'S JOURNAL, PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE, OUTLOOK, PHYSICAL CULTURE, EDUCATOR, and BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW. He died in Terre Haute .

Information from Who's Who in America.

ELLERBE, ALMA MARTIN ESTABROOK (MRS. PAUL): 1871-

Alma Martin , daughter of Samuel Marsh and Florence Howard Martin, was born in Greenfield, Ind., on Apr. 7, 1871. She was educated at Oxford Female College in Ohio . Later a resident of New York , Mrs. Ellerbe contributed novelettes and short stories to magazines, sometimes in collaboration with her husband, Paul Ellerbe, writer and lecturer.

Information from Who's Who in America.

ELLIOTT, ERNEST EUGENE: 1878-

Ernest Eugene Elliott , born in Indianapolis on Oct. 15, 1878, was, successively, general manager of the Illinois Car Service Association, Peoria, Ill. (1898-1909); national secretary of the Brotherhood of Disciples of Christ, Kansas City, Mo. (1909-14); and transportation and publicity secretary for the International Convention of Disciples of Christ (1914-20). Besides his connections with various boards and societies, he was also a special correspondent and contributed feature articles and children's stories to the KANSAS CITY STAR and other newspapers. He died in Kansas City .

Information from the Indianapolis Public Library.

ELLIOTT, JOSEPH PETER: 1815-?

Joseph Peter Elliott was born in Lynchburg, Va., on Apr. 3, 1815, the son of Peter and Ann Brown Elliott.

In 1824 the family moved to Lexington, Ky., where young Elliott supplemented the tutoring of his sister, Elizabeth, with brief attendance at the local school.

In 1836 he went to Louisville, Ky., moving on the next year to Evansville, Ind., where he became a saddler and harness maker. He married Mary Ann Harrison in 1838.

He quit the saddlery business after making harness and saddles for Indiana regiments during the Civil War and subsequently engaged in the manufacture of plows, pork packing and the real estate business. He served as a member of the Evansville council almost from its organization and took a leading part in civic affairs.

After the death of his first wife he was twice married.

Information from Elliott. A History of Evansville and Vanderburgh County, Indiana.

ELLIOTT, JOSEPH TAYLOR: 1837-1916.

Born in Butler County, O., on Jan. 24, 1837, Joseph Taylor Elliott came with his family to Indianapolis when he was about thirteen years old. His father, William J. Elliott, was in the hotel business in Indianapolis from 1850 until 1863. After receiving a common school education, young Joseph clerked for a time in his father's hotels, went to Colorado in 1859, and in 1860 worked in a hotel in Montgomery, Ala.

He served in the Civil War, first in the 11th Indiana Zouaves, under Lew Wallace, and later in the 124th Indiana Infantry. In 1864 he was taken prisoner in Tennessee and spent some time in various Confederate prisons before being released on parole in March of 1865. He was one of the survivors of the burning and sinking of the Sultana, in which more than two thousand Union soldiers lost their lives, near Memphis, Tenn., in April, 1865.

From 1866 to 1900 Mr. Elliott engaged in the abstract business in Indianapolis , from 1899 to 1904 he served as president of the Marion Trust Company, and after 1904 he was in the investment business. He married Annetta Langsdale on May 15, 1867, and died in Indianapolis on Aug. 4, 1916.

Information from Dunn–Indiana and Indianans.

ELLIOTT, LYDIA LANDON: ?-

Except for the fact that she was a long-time resident of Terre Haute, Ind., no information upon the life of Lydia Landon Elliott has been located.

Information from the Emmeline Fairbanks Memorial Library, Terre Haute, Ind.

ELLISON, ALFRED: 1854-1934.

Born at Charleston, W. Va. , on Feb. 1, 1854, Alfred Ellison was the son of an itinerant Baptist minister, who moved to Madison County, Ind., in 1860. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1884, and practiced law in Anderson, Ind. In 1890 he was elected judge and served one term.

Information from Parker and Heiney–Poets and Poetry of Indiana.

ELLSWORTH, HENRY WILLIAM: 1814-1864.

" Henry William Ellsworth … lawyer, diplomat, was a grandson of Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth and a son of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth and his wife, Nancy Allen Goodrich. Born at Windsor, Conn., where his father was practicing law, he received his early education at the Ellington School at Windsor and at Hartford, Conn., In 1830 he proceeded to Yale, where he graduated in 1834, subsequently studying for a short time in the law school there. In 1836 he went to Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Ind., in which neighborhood his father had acquired large tracts of land from the government. Opening a law office in Lafayette, the page: 102[View Page 102] younger Ellsworth also became a member of the firm of Curtiss and Ellsworth, general land agents, specializing in Wabash and Maumee Valley lands, and, on his father's removal to Washington, D. C., to become commissioner of patents, assumed charge of the latter's extensive Western interests. In 1838 he published Valley of the Upper Wabash, Indiana, with Hints on Its Agricultural Advantages, etc., embodying much information obtained from his father's paper, and this work, combined with his influential Eastern connections, helped to stimulate active interest in northwestern lands on the part of both speculators and bona fide settlers. He also … was an occasional contributor to the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE. At the same time he participated in the political struggles of the time, was prominent among the supporters of Polk in the election campaign of 1844, and was a presidential elector in that year. On Apr. 19, 1845, he was appointed by President Polk charge d'affaires to Sweden and Norway . The duties of this position he performed with ability for over four years, but his diplomatic career was brought to a close by an episode the implications of which are even today doubtful. Early in 1849 charges were made in the European and home press that in Dec. 1848 Ellsworth had connived at an attempt to smuggle British goods into Sweden , and the facts disclosed in an ex parte investigation prima facie supported the allegation. In consequence Secretary of State Clayton recalled him as of Apr. 23, 1849, the 'President believing that the public service requires a change in the Swedish mission.' Ellsworth protested and vigorously defended himself, and a rather pathetic appeal was made to President Taylor by influential public men on his behalf, but in vain; and following a stern letter from Clayton his appointment was terminated July 25, 1849. On returning to the U. S. he resumed law practice at Lafayette and later at Indianapolis . A large circle of acquaintances evinced their unimpaired belief in his integrity, and he was retained by his father's intimate friend, S. F. B. Morse …, in the actions which Morse took to protect his patent rights. His health, never good, broke down, and he was compelled to relinquish his practice, retiring to New Haven, Conn., where he died at the early age of fifty. He was married on Jan. 11, 1844, to Mary E. West of Salem, Mass. … "

Condensed from H. W. H. K., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. VI.

  • The Valley of the Upper Wabash, Indiana, with Hints on Its Agricultural Advantages. New York, 1838.Search "The Valley of the Upper Wabash, Indiana, with Hints on Its
                                            Agricultural Advantages" by ELLSWORTH, HENRY WILLIAM: 1814-1864. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust
  • The American Swine Breeder, a Practical Treatise on the Selection, Rearing and Fattening of Swine. Boston, 1840.Search "The American Swine Breeder, a Practical Treatise on the
                                            Selection, Rearing and Fattening of Swine" by ELLSWORTH, HENRY WILLIAM: 1814-1864. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

ELMORE, JAMES BUCHANAN: 1857-1942.

At the time of his death in 1942, the Crawfordsville JOURNAL AND REVIEW, newspaper in which many of his poems had been first published, had the following to say about James Buchanan Elmore , "The Bard of Alamo ":

"James B. Elmore, Ripley township octogenarian who in the Gay Nineties and for some years thereafter delighted Hoosier folk with his rustic poems, died at his 900-acre farm home near Alamo at four A.M. He had been suffering for the past six months with the infirmities of age.

"Once the Bard bountiful whose pen was never still, he had foresworn verse in recent years, devoting his entire interest to his farming properties. But to his many friends, particularly of the older generations, he was still affectionately remembered as the man who fashioned couplets about earthy things such as sassafras and turnip greens and railroad wrecks.

"The 85-year-old former sonneteer was born on the same farm where death occurred, on Jan. 25, 1857, the son of Mathias and Mary Ann Willis Elmore and on Feb. 14, 1880, he was married to Mary Ann Murray, who, according to an autobiography of the bard, came from Nevada City , Mo. He later dedicated one of his poems, 'My Mary of Missouri ', to her.

"He graduated from the Alamo Academy, where he studied with a large class which also included Noah J. Clodfelter, William Humphrey, once president of Cornell, and Eva Ballard, novelist.

"He taught school for twenty years, spending the summer months at farming. He wrote occasional poems for the newspapers of Indianapolis and Crawfordsville and in 1898 he published a volume of his poems. Three other volumes of his prose and poetry were published in later years by Mr. Elmore.

"The pastoral scenes with which he was familiar inspired most of the writings of the benign bard from Ripley township. Few older people in western Indiana have not repeated to their children and grandchildren passages from 'The Monon Wreck' with its climactic 'Cut, Oh cut my leg away!' petition; have not chuckled over his 'Shoe Cobbler', or have not recalled that song of spring from the bard's 'Sassafras, Oh Sassafras !'

"The mellifluous singer of rural roundelays was given his name–the 'Bard of Alamo'–by Jesse Green, a Crawfordsville newspaperman.

page: 103[View Page 103]

"The Alamo poet wrote hundreds of verses before he put his pen aside, and most of his songs were of a rural theme as attested by his poems 'Sugar Making', 'When the Pawpaws are Ripe', 'The Frog', 'The Old Sawmill', 'Katie Gathers Greens' and 'The Good Old Sheep-Sorrel Pie.'

"On other occasions he wrote on politics, on Wabash College and on crime. He toured the nation early in the century to read his compositions.

"Mr. Elmore was a life-long member of the Alamo Christian church and belonged to the Knights of Pythias lodge of Waynetown, and for some years to the Odd Fellows lodge at Alamo . He was prominent in Democratic politics …"

A few days later appeared, in the same paper:

"The widow and three children of the late James B. Elmore are to receive his $50,000 estate, under the terms of a will admitted to probate in the Montgomery circuit court.

"A son, Roscoe, was named administrator of the estate, with will annexed. Court papers revealed that the personal property owned by the 'Bard of Alamo' was estimated to be worth $15,000 and real estate was valued at $35,000.

"The will was dated May 8, 1935."

And shortly after, Frank E. Burk, of Valparaiso, Ind., who had been a Wabash College student in the Bard's palmiest days, contributed the following to the WABASH COLLEGE BULLETIN:

"I can remember the Bard, just as well as if it were yesterday, standing on Crawfordsville's Main Street opposite the Court House steps.

"It is Saturday or circus day or a fiesta or gala day of some kind. He has one of those little satchels with patent leather finish, made especially for carrying diapers … it was fastened around his neck with a strap. It lay open like he was selling peanuts and in it nestled at least 50 anemic looking red books about the size of a McGuffey Primer.

"This book contained the current sampling of his poetic works, unexpurgated and including, maybe, the pathetic little story about the poor little gel who had so much trouble working in the overalls factory and the far greater troubles she had with the unprincipled roues who worked in the overalls.

"The book sold for 75¢ and I don't think that James B. had to work those stony acres of his very hard, for many's the time I've seen him start on the long trip back to Alamo with his moth eaten horse and buggy and his diaper compact innocent of a single immortal tome. And I often wondered who was the smarter, the wise guy who laughed at his poesy, or the Bard, with his pocket full of bucks, jogging homeward his dusty way laughing at the suckers who bought his books?"

Of the many thousands of copies of the many editions of his four titles which James B. Elmore had printed during his productive years, few may be found on the markets today; it is much less difficult to assemble a set of the first issues of Gen. Lew Wallace's books than to gather the four Elmore works in any edition: every Crawfordsville book store, library or other conceivable source of a possible purchase is constantly besieged by hopeful would-be acquisitors of the Bard's works from all over the English speaking world–with a decreasing modicum of success. No fabulous prices are paid but the works of James Buchanan Elmore, once collected, are read and re-read–which is a tribute not always paid to many volumes of more intrinsic worth.

Although most of his books were reprinted many times, some years of careful study have led to the conclusion that the first editions of Elmoriana are as described below.

Information from the CRAWFORDSVILLE JOURNAL AND REVIEW and the WABASH COLLEGE BULLETIN.

EMBREE, CHARLES FLEMING: 1874-1905.

Charles Fleming Embree , son of David F. and Mary Fleming Embree, was born in Princeton, Ind., on Oct. 1, 1874. His parents were members of pioneer southern Indiana families.

Young Embree was educated in the Princeton public schools and entered Wabash College in the fall of 1892. After three years he left college to devote his time to writing. In writing he achieved immediate success, his first novel being published in 1897. On Jan. 18, 1898, he married Virginia Broadwell.

He was awarded an honorary A.M. degree by Wabash College in 1903 in recognition of the distinguished place among American novelists which he had already achieved.

page: 104[View Page 104]

Charles Fleming Embree died in 1905, in his thirty-first year.

Information from Who Was Who in America and the Wabash College Archives.

EMSWILER, GEORGE P.: 1830-?

George P. Emswiler was born in York, Pa., on Jan. 15, 1830. His parents were Dr. J. P. and Elizabeth Mitchell Emswiler.

He began his education in York , and, when the family came to Indiana in 1846, he continued in the Wayne County schools for a year or so.

Mr. Emswiler moved to Richmond, Ind., in 1847 and eventually set himself up as a merchant there. He was twice married, first to Martha A. Finley in 1855, and second to Attilia R. Goodrich.

Information from the Richmond, Ind., Public Library.

  • Poems and Sketches; Consisting of Poems and Local History; Notes of Travel; a Long List of Wayne County's Pioneer Dead … Richmond, Ind., 1897.Search "Poems and Sketches; Consisting of Poems and Local History;
                                            Notes of Travel; a Long List of Wayne County's Pioneer Dead
                                            …" by EMSWILER, GEORGE P.: 1830-? in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

ENGLE, WILLIS DARWIN: 1846-1925.

Willis D. Engle , who was born at Niles, Mich., on Oct. 22, 1846, came to Indianapolis on Apr. 1, 1865. Besides his career as a railroad man, business man, and editor, he also had an extensive record of service as a member of the Episcopal ministry. He was an active worker and held many offices in the Masonic Lodge. He died on Nov. 2, 1925.

Information from the Indianapolis Public Library.

ENGLISH, WILLIAM EASTIN: 1854-1926.

William Eastin English , son of William Hayden and Emma Mardulia Jackson English, was born at the family home, Englishton Park, in Scott County, Ind., on Nov. 3, 1854. He was educated at Northwestern Christian (now Butler) University, received his LL.B. from the law school in 1877, and practiced law in Indianapolis . In 1879-80 he served a term in the Indiana House of Representatives, being the youngest member of that body; was a member of the 48th Congress (1883-85); and, from 1916 to 1928, served in the Indiana State Senate. In 1925-26 he practiced law with his daughter, Rosalind Orr English, under the firm name of English & English.

Mr. English spent several years in foreign travel. During the Spanish-American War he was aide-decamp to Gen. Joseph Wheeler during the Cuba campaign, and he was seriously injured during the bombardment of E1 Paso Hill when his horse was shot and fell on him. From 1899 to 1920 he served on the staff of the governor of Indiana. He made the seconding speech at the nomination of Cleveland in 1892 and was a Democrat until the party division in 1896. He died on Apr. 29, 1926.

Information from Dunn–Indiana and Indianans and Who Was Who in America.

ENGLISH, WILLIAM HAYDEN: 1822-1896.

" William Hayden English … congressman, Democratic candidate for the vice-presidency, historian, was born at Lexington, Scott County, Ind., the son of Elisha G. and Mahala Eastin English. On his mother's side he was descended from Jost Hite, one of the first white settlers of the Shenandoah Valley. His parents removed from Kentucky to Indiana in 1818, and there Elisha English, a Democrat, took a prominent part in politics, being at different times sheriff of Scott County, a representative and also a senator in the Indiana Legislature, and United States marshal.

"Young English attended Hanover College for three years, studied law, and was admitted to the bar at the early age of eighteen. The same year, 1840, he was a delegate to the Democratic state convention at Indianapolis . When Tyler succeeded to the presidency after the death of Harrison, he appointed the young Democrat postmaster of Lexington . In 1843 English was elected clerk of the Indiana House of Representatives, and a year later he received an appointment in the page: 105[View Page 105] Treasury Department at Washington , a position he held until shortly before the end of Polk's presidency, becoming, soon after, clerk of the U. S. Senate committee on claims during the historic session of 1850. He next became secretary of the convention that framed the Indiana constitution of 1851, and as speaker, during part of the session of the next House of Representatives, played a leading part in re-adjusting the laws and machinery of government to the conditions created by the new constitution.

"In 1852 he was elected to represent the second Indiana district in the Thirty-third Congress. As a member of that body he voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and was one of the few Northern Democrats so voting who survived the next congressional election. He was re-elected … in 1856 and again in 1858. In the latter year he stood with Douglas in opposing the effort of Buchanan of the South to bring Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, which had been ratified in an election in which the voters of the Territory had not been given a fair chance to express their views. A conference committee became necessary, and as a member of this committee English played a leading part in framing the compromise known as the English Bill. This measure, which ultimately became a law, in effect offered the people of Kansas a bribe of public land if they would ratify the pro-slavery constitution, a thing which as English had foreseen, they refused to do.

"In 1860 he declined to stand for reelection and in March 1861 retired to private life. He opposed secession, and denied that the election of a Republican president justified an attempt to break up the Union. In a speech in the House he warned his Southern associates that his constituents would only 'march under the flag and keep step to the music of the Union.' Upon the utbreak of war, Gov. Morton offered him command of a regiment but he declined it. He supported the Union cause, however, and opposed the Knights of the Golden Circle in Indiana.

"In 1863 he removed to Indianapolis , and there helped to organize the First National Bank, of which he became president, holding that position until 1877. He played a prominent part in the business life of the city and ultimately became a millionaire. In 1880 geographical and other reasons led the National Democratic Convention to nominate him for the vice-presidency as the running mate of Gen. Hancock. Throughout his life he was interested in scientific and literary matters. While a congressman he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and in later life he was long president of the Indiana Historical Society. For many years he collected material bearing upon the early history of the old Northwest … In 1847, while a clerk at Washington, English married Emma Mardulia Jackson of Virginia … He died Feb. 7, 1896."

Condensed from P. L. H., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. VI.

  • Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778-1783, and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark. Indianapolis, 1896. 2 vols. (Re-issued, 1897, under binder's title History of Indiana.)Search "Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio,
                                            1778-1783, and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark" by ENGLISH, WILLIAM HAYDEN: 1822-1896. in IUCAT, Google Books, OCLC WorldCat, or HathiTrust

ESAREY, LOGAN: 1873-1942.

Logan Esarey was the leading scholar of his day in the field of Indiana history and one of the leading scholars in the country in Middle Western history and historical method. In his teaching he was equally interested in the non-intellectual freshman and in the scholarly graduate student. His published historical writings, often completed to meet a particular need at a particular time, did not do justice to his scholarship. Aside from his influence in the training of students, his most important work lay in the collecting, preservation, and study of historical materials for the Library of Indiana University.

He was an individual of the type referred to in a certain era of American history as "rugged": he believed some truths to be self-evident; he had, and in others honored, "horse-sense," and he was a great teacher of American history–perhaps the greatest of his day in the Middle Western field. Impatient of politic ritual, he aspired to no executive or administrative position; once he had reached his maturity, he wished only to teach, and that he did for the last thirty years of his life.

Son of John Clark and Barbara Ewing Esarey, he was born on Jan. 3, 1873, near Branchville, Ind. His youth was spent on a farm, a farm not prosperous or currently modern but operated in the style of a half century earlier. This experience enabled him to portray in his lectures, and to write in his posthumously published essays, The Indiana Home, of the true day-to-day life of the midwestern pioneer.

He attended local schools and received his higher education at Central Normal (now Canterbury) College and Indiana University. He received the A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the latter institution.

He married Laura Pearson on May 20, 1897, and served as superintendent of schools for Perry County, Ind., from 1897 to 1903. Between 1907 and 1909 he page: 106[View Page 106] was principal of the high schools in Vincennes and Bloomington and from 1909 to 1912 acted as dean of Winona College. He became a member of the Indiana University faculty in 1912 and continued until his retirement in 1941.

He died on Sept. 24, 1942.

In addition to his published works listed below, Esarey contributed to publications of the Indiana Historical Society and Indiana University.

Information from Who's Who in America and Buley–Logan Esarey, Hoosier.

ESTEY, JAMES ARTHUR: 1886-

James Arthur Estey , son of Henry Guilford and Emma Louisa Spurden Estey, was born at Fredericton, N. B., Canada, on July 16, 1886, and graduated from Acadia University in 1907. A Rhodes scholar, he was awarded the A.B. degree by Oxford University in 1909 and received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1911. On June 7, 1910, he married Emma Grey Murray.

From 1911 to 1913 he was an associate professor of economics and history at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. He came to the U. S. in 1913 and for one year taught at the University of Wisconsin. In 1914 he joined the faculty of Purdue University, serving as professor of economics after 1920 and as head of the department of history, economics and government after 1929. He became a citizen of the U. S. in 1932.

Information from Who's Who in America.

EVANS, MADISON: 1834-1866.

Madison Evans was born in Warrick County, Ind., on Oct. 24, 1834.

He received the A.B., A.M. and LL.B. degrees from Indiana University and became, successively, a tutor at the University of Wisconsin, principal of a New Albany, Ind., school, and a professor at Northwestern Christian (now Butler) University. He resigned the last position to study law but died on Mar. 5, 1866, at the age of thirty-two.

Information from Wylie–Indiana University, Its History from 1820 to 1890.

EVERTS, ORPHEUS: 1826-1903.

Orpheus Everts , son of Dr. Sylvanus and Elizabeth Heywood Everts, was born in Liberty, Ind., on Dec. 18, 1826. He belonged to a family of physicians—his father, uncle, and three brothers were all doctors. He was educated in the schools of his native county and received his M.D. degree from the Medical College of Indiana in 1846. During the Civil War he served as a surgeon with the 20th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers from 1861 to 1865. From 1868 to 1879 he was superintendent of the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, and from 1880 on he was superintendent of the Cincinnati Sanitarium. He died in 1903.

Dr. Everts was one of the earliest Indiana-born writers. He was also an amateur painter, an editor, and author of medical literature.

Information from Representative Men of Indiana, Vol. I, and Who Was Who in America.

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