Mr. Powers was born at Detroit, Michigan, May 18, 1878, son of John and Bridget (McInnery) Powers. His father came from County Kilkenny, Ireland, while his mother was born in Troy, New York. John Powers for many years was in the employ of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway, and lived at Chicago, where he was yardmaster. Both parents are buried in Chicago. They had eight children, Tom, Andrew, Frank, Bridget, Mary, Nellie, Catherine and William E.
William Edward Powers completed his grade school work in the Keith School of Chicago. He then went to work, bur more or less regularly for eight years attended night school and in that way supplemented and broadened his educational training, studying subjects of direct practical value to him and his work. For five years he attended night school in Chicago and three years in Boston. All of the time he was in Chicago after leaving public school he spent learning his trade as a stone cutter. Other intricate technical branches of the business have been mastered by him as he has gone along, and he knows everything connected with the industry from the quarrying of the stone to its preparation and laying in building construction. He first came to this section of Indiana in 1905, and was made foreman and later superintendent of the Dugan Cut Stone Company. After this company sold out he went to Oolithic and became superintendent for the Central Oolithic Company of Bloomington. Later he returned to the Consolidated Stone Company at Bedford as general manager. Mr. Powers is now president and general manager of the Reed-Powers Mill, one of the largest of the independent mills operated in Lawrence County. It was formerly the Wallner Mill. He went with this business at first as vice president and since the death of Mr. Reed has been president of the company.
Mr. Powers married, June 23, 1908, Miss Elizabeth Schmidt, daughter of Ernest and Elizabeth (Mansing) Schmidt. She is a member of one of the oldest families in Bedford and Lawrence counties. Mr. and Mrs. Powers have two children: Mary Elizabeth, attending the Conservatory of Music at Cincinnati; and Margaret Frances, in the Bedford High School. Mr. Powers is a member of the B. P. O. Elks, Knights of Columbus, and is active in the Saint Vincent de Paul Society of the Catholic Church.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
RALPH N. SMITH has been connected with the great limestone industry of Southern Indiana since he was sixteen years of age. His work has been in the quarries and mills, and his familiarity with the technical work of preparing and building is supplemented by a high degree of executive talent. Mr. Smith is now superintendent and general manager of the Donato Mill of the Indiana Limestone Company at Bedford.
He was born on his father's famr near Shoals, Indiana, January 8, 1884, son of McClure and Mary (Barker) Smith, and grandson of Thorton Smith, who came from Ohio and was an early settler in this part of Indiana. Thornton Smith was a Union soldier in the Civil war. McClure Smith was also born on a farm near Shoals, and during his active life followed farming and the trade of carpenter. He and his wife are buried in the Green Hill Cemetery. There were nine children: Clyde, who married Etta Kitchen; Ethel, who became the wife of Phillip Harris; Ralph N.; Ida, wife of Ely R. Clifton; Pulaski E., who married Effie Hill; Walter E., who died when eighteen years old; Fred W., who married Corinne Simon; Hobart T.; and Addie, wife of Oliver Rayburn.
Ralph N. Smith had all his early school advantages at Mount Union, Indiana. His subsequent education, including some technical and business studies, was acquired by night study after he began work. When he was sixteen years old he became a laborer in the P. M. B. Quarry, one of the deep workings in the vicinity of Bedford. Later he was put in the P. M. & B. Mill at Bedford and there spent two years learning the trade of planerman. About that time he became interested in local politics and was elected city clerk, and was reelected, but soon resigned in order to give his full time to his business. Later on he built up a successful side line in insurance, but sold his interest. Mr. Smith in 1924 was made planer foreman of the Donato Mill, and about a year and a half later was promoted to superintendent and general manager. He is a member of the Bedford Industrial Club, made up largely of superintendents, general managers and foreman in the stone industry.
He married, August 19, 1908, Miss Ruby Denniston, daughter of W. C. and Etta (Eller) Denniston. Her father is a retired farmer and her mother died in 1913. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have two daughters, Alah and Elizabeth, both graduates of the Bedford High School. Alah married, August 25, 1929, Opal F. Wilson, who is also a graduate of the high school at Bedford. Mr. Smith is a Republican voter, is a member of the Masonic Lodge, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and all his family are active in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
BENJAMIN F. TEETOR, inventor and manufacturer, is one of a group of men of mechanical genius comprising the Teetor family whose enterprise has been a powerful factor in the industrial development and prosperity of the City of Hagerstown, Wayne County.
Benjamin F. Teetor is a son of Zachariah and Barbara (Hoover) Teetor. The Teetor family has been in the Wayne County, Indiana, since pioneer times. Benjamin F. Teetor attended public schools, grew up on an Indiana farm, worked as a farm hand between school terms, and when he was fourteen years of age he was working in a bicycle shop at Muncie. His brother Charles, now president of the Perfeect Circle Company at Hagerstown, was one of the owners of that shop. It was while in the bicycle business that Charles Teetor invented a railroad car for inspection purposes that was propelled like a bicycle, and types of that vehicle are still being manufactured and used.
In 1895 the Teetor Brothers began the manufacture of special railroad equipment and supplies at Hagerstown, under the name of Railway Cycle Manufacturing Company. There have been several changes in the name of the business during the thirty odd years of its existence. These changes in name reflect in a measure the differing emphasis placed upon articles of manufacture. The second name was the Light Inspection Car Company. That was succeeded by the Teetor-Hartley Motor Company, and a few years ago the company sold the motor portion of its plant and has since specialized in the manufacture of piston rings. The business became the Indiana Piston Ring Company and is now the Perfect Circle Company.
Benjamin F. Teetor was employed by and financially interested in this firm thirty-one years, until April 1, 1927, when he discontinued his active relations and has since engaged in experimental work, owning a shop for that purpose at Hagerstown. He has made a special study of design and construction for the railway motor car, different from the automobile, since it has no springs or tires, and at the same time is light in weight, so that it can readily be moved from the rails. The essential principle of the type of construction finally determined upon was one with vertical crank shaft and opposed cylinders, which has worked out very satisfactorily, employing the gyroscope principle, thus eliminating vibation. At the same time the car construction is very light and powerful. The United States patent office issued a patent on this car to Mr. Teetor, April 23, 1929, and patents have also been issued by Great Briton and Canada.
Mr. Teetor married, July 19, 1905, Miss Mabel Brower, who was born a Losantville, Indiana, daughter of Lewis and Lucinda (Parker) Brower. Their only child, George Henry, died at the age of one year. They are rearing two daughers, nieces of Mrs. Teetor, Josephine and Madeline, twins, born October 16,
1916. Mr. Teetor has served as a member of the Hagerstown City Council. He was reared a Republican, but is an independent voter, and is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CHARLES T. BAKER. The career of Charles T. Baker, owner and publisher of the Grandview Monitor since 1905, is an expression of practical diversified activity, and in its range has invaded the realms of journalism, education, politics and society, all of which have profited by the breadth and conscientiousness which are distinctive features of his work and character. Identified with newspaper work for about forty years, he has established a high reputation among the journalist of Southern Indiana, and in addition is probably one of the best-versed men as to the Spencer County life and history of Abraham Lincoln in the state.
Mr. Baker was born at Norwalk, Ohio, February 5, 1871, and is a son of H. Carlton and Mary Elizabeth (Zeller) Baker. His father was born July 6, 1847, at Norwalk, a son of James W. Baker, who came from New York State, as a babe in arms to Ohio and who was born May 11, 1819, and died May 19, 1917. The Baker family trace their ancestry to Edward Baker, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1630. A genealogical record of the family was compiled and published in 1867 by Nelson M. Baker, of Lafayette, New York. H. Carlton Baker was reared and educated at Norwalk, and in early life adopted the vocation of farming, which he followed with success throughout a long and useful career, his death occurring at Norwalk, Ohio, in 1904. Mrs. H. C. Baker was also born in Ohio, her parents having gone to that state from Pennsylvania. She and Mr. Baker were the parents of five children: Charles T., of this review; Frank, born in 1873; Cora, born in 1876; Ella Grace, born in 1878; and Raymond W., born in 1883.
Charles T. Baker attended the public schools of Norwalk, Ohio, and spent a part of his boyhood and youth on the home farm. He was a delicate lad, however, and it was decided by his parents to send him to North Carolina for his health, and while there he made friends with the proprietor of a printing business, in whose shop he learned the trade. Upon his return to Norwalk he secured work in the shop of the Fair Publishing House, of Norwalk, and remained there until some time in 1898, when he came to Rockport, Spencer County, and went to work on the Journal and later on the Democrat, with which he was identified for six years. He was also employed on the Baptist Observer, of Greensburg, Indiana, for a short time, but in 1904 took up his permanent residence at Grandview, where he bought the Monitor. He has made this one of the leading papers in this part of the state, conducts a flourishing job department, and does all of his own work. Mr. Baker has been very actively interested in historical work and through his writings appearing in his own paper and others has become known as an authority upon that part of the life of Abraham Lincoln spent in Spencer County, his written comments upon this subject having been widely quoted and accepted as authoritative. He is one of the pillars of the Baptist Church at Grandview, where he serves as a member of the board of deacons and has also been superintendent of the Sunday School. Few men have done more for the development of their territory. He is a member of the library board, assistant secretary of the Cahutauqua, secretary of the Grandview Lincoln Trail Club, and a director of the Grandview Building & Loan Association. A Republican in his political allegiance, he has served capably in the capacity of town clerk, and as a fraternalist has been affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. He is the owner of a farm and a pleasant and attractive home in Grandview.
Mr. Baker married Miss Anna Craig on December 9, 1902, the daughter of Captain Joe Craig, a steamboat man, and she died in 1916. On August 16, 1917, Mr. Baker married Miss Gertrude Barker, and they have two daughters:
Annie May, born June 1, 1920, and Betty June, born June 19, 1925.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
DAYTON FRANKLIN ABBOTT is president and general manager of the Abbott Detective Agency, with headquarters in the Standard Building at Fort Wayne. Mr. Abbott has had an extended experience as an investigator and law officer, and has made his organization one of the most complete of its kind in Northen Indiana.
He was born in Wabash County, Indiana, December 29, 1877, son of Frank and Mary (Baer) Abbott, his father a native of Wabash County and his mother of Whitley County, Indiana. Mr. Abbott's paternal grandparents came to Indiana at an early date. The maternal grandparents were Amos R. T. and Sarah (Summers) Baer. Frank Abbott had a public school education in Wabash county and combined the occupations of farming and well drilling. He was a member of the Christian Church. He passed away February 1, 1929, when seventy-five years of age. His wife is a member of the Dunkard or Brethren Church. They had just two children: Dayton F. and Albert A. Albert was a road contractor and was serving as sheriff of Allen County when he was killed in 1923. The mother of these children died in 1918.
Dayton F. Abbott attended the North Manchester High School in Wabash County and in 1895, when he was eighteen years of age, went to work for the Telephone Company. His experience in the telephone business covered a period of fourteen years and in 1901 he moved to Fort Wayne, where he was associated with the Bell Telephone interests until 1906. From 1909 to January, 1911, was in the service of the Pennsylvania Railway and in February, 1911, was appointed chief of police of Fort Wayne. He served four years, under the administration of Mayor Grice, and during the four-year period, 1914-18, he was with the Fort Wayne Transfer Company and the Grace Construction Company. Mr. Abbott was again called to the duties of the chief of police in 1918, serving during the four-year term of Mayor Cutshall. In 1922-1923 he did work with the Bureau of Investigation, in the Federal department of justice, and in 1923 established the Abbott Detective Agency, of which he is president and general manager.
Mr. Abbott is a Spanish-American war veteran. He was a sergeant in Company D of the 157th Indiana Volunteers during that war. He has membership in the Spanish-American War Veterans, and his family attend the Catholic Church, while he is liberal in his religious views.
Mr. Abbott married, September 30, 1913, Miss Grace A. Baker, daughter of Killian Baker. Her father died in 1911. Her mother, whose maiden name was Ann Daugherty, died in 1927 when eighty-nine years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott have four children: Ann Daughert y, born in June, 1917; Mary Frances, born in July, 1920; Dayton F., Jr., born in August, 1922; and Margaret Jean, born in May, 1924.
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INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
CLIFFORD W. BICKENHEUSER was born in the City of Bedford, grew up in the atmosphere of the stone-working industry and almost as a matter of course found his life work in the business that has its capital at Bedford. Mr. Bickenheuser is superintendent and general manager of the Struble Mill, one of the mills comprised under the ownership of the Indiana Limestone Company.
Mr. Bickenheuser was born June 13, 1882, on what was then High Street, now F Street, in the City of Bedford. As a boy he attended the common schools, being a pupil in the East Side School and later the West Side, where he entered the sixth grade and continued until he was about fourteen years of age. When he left school he learned the trade of stone cutter, and from cutting stone took up the branch of the business known as planerman. For several years he worked on the outside, helping with the stone work on the Southern Indiana Railway Shops at Bedford and Terre Haute for a year. He then resumed his work in the mills, spending three years in the Hoosier Mill, was with the Fust & Kerber Cut Stone Company until 1910 and since then has been with the Henry Struble Cut Stone Company, starting as a planerman, was promoted to planer foreman and since July, 1926, has been superintendent and manager of the Struble Mill.
Mr. Bickenheuser is a member of the Christian Church, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and Modern Woodsmen of America. He married, September 17, 1903, Miss Maud Teague, daughter of Mollie (Ikerd) and James E. Teague. They have three children, Helen Thelma, James Phillip and Mary Catherine. James Phillip married Eva George, and they have a daughter, Martha Lou.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
TIMOTHY K. DONOVAN, of Bedford, knows the stone industry from the standpoint of nearly forty years of practical working experience. He is one of the important men in the business, being superintendent and general manager of the Shea Mill, a subsidiary of the Indiana Limestone Company.
Mr. Donovan was born in the City of Cork, Ireland, September 21, 1868, sone of Michael and Mary (O'Keefe) Donovan. His parents lived all their lives in Ireland, and of their eight children three grew up, Timothy being the only one to seek the opportunities of America. His brother Daniel and his sister Hannah are still in Ireland. Timothy Donovan attended Irish schools and for several years studied with a view to entering the English civil service. When he was nineteen years of age, after completing his schooling, he came to America. His first location was at Lynn, Massachusetts, where he spent two and a half years learing the leather finishing trade. Mr. Donovan in 1892 entered the employ of the Shea & Donnelly Company at Lynn, Massachusetts, and his first work was as a truck driver for the company. After three years he was put in charge of the laborers of the mill, and from that learned the trade of planerman, was made planerman foreman and later superintendent. The mill where he was working was destroyed by fire in 1910, and soon afterward he was sent to Bedford to take charge of the holdings of the firm in that city and has been over the mill here for the past twenty years. This was on eof the mills included in the merger of 1926.
Mr. Donovan married in 1899 Sue W. Dowling, of Prince Edward Island, Canada, daughter of James and Margaret (Kelly) Dowling. Mr. and Mrs. Donovan have four children: Mary, born in November, 1899; Rickard, born in August, 1902; John, born in March, 1904, married Louise Stueglitz and has a daughter, Margaret Louise; and Clarence, born in February, 1908. The family are all
active members of the St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church. Mr. Donovan is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the B. P. O. Elks and the Industrial Club, and is a member of the Bedford Country Club.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
WILLIAM CUTHILL learned his trade as a stone cutter in Scotland. Nearly twenty-five years ago he came to the limestone district of Southern Indiana. His service has been continuous in and around Bedford except for two or three years during the World war. Mr. Cuthill is superintendent and general manager of the A. W. Stone Mill, formerly the Hoosier Cut Stone Company, now a subsidiary of the great organization known as the Indiana Limestone Company.
Mr. Cuthill was born in Scotland, October 21, 1884, son of James and Marion (Stirling) Cuthill. His parents lived all their lives in Scotland, where his father was a baker by trade. There were nine children, John, James, Tom, Alexander, Harry, Christina, Maynard, William and Robert.
William Cuthill is the only member of the family to come to America. He had an eighth grade education in his home town, leaving school at the age of fourteen, and for a time was employed in a grocery store and for over a year was a messenger in the Government service. After completing a four-year apprenticeship at the stone cutting trade he came to America in 1906. Mr. Cuthill as a youth had played football and has always ben an ardent follower of athletic sports. About the time he arrived in this country there awoke a wave of popular appreciation of soccer football, and Mr. Cuthill played that game as a professional, being captain of the Newark, New Jersey team. In later years he has kept up a strong interest in college sports.
In May, 1908, Mr. Cuthill came to Bedford and followed his trade in the stone mills until 1917, when he went to Canada and joined a regiment known as the Forty-eighth Highlanders. He was sent overseas to France, and saw a great deal of the hard service of the last two years of the war. For six months of the time he was laid up in a London hospital. After being relieved of military duty he came back to Bedford and was made foreman of the A. W. Stone Mill and later appointed its superintendent and general manager. He is one of the very popular executives in the stone industry.
He married in 1907 Miss Janet Hamilton, daughter of Ferguson and Janet (Patterson) Hamilton. Her parents lived in the same town in which Mr. Cuthill was born. They have a daughter, Janet, a graduate of the University of Indiana. The family are members of the Presbyterian Church.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
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GEORGE A. BALL is the youngest of the group of brothers whose activities have been such a great contribution to Indiana's industrial prosperity, and has contributed in full measure to the technical ability and sound business sense to the wonderful success of the organization. Mr. Ball, like his brothers, was born on a farm in Trumbull County, Ohio, November 5, 1862, son of Lucius Styles and Maria (Bingham) Ball. The history of his family in detail is given on other pages of this publication. Mr. Ball in recent years has been given many honors and responsibilities in his home community of Muncie. In 1929 he was reelected president of the Muncie Chapter of the American Red Cross. He is a member of the Rotary Club, the Union League and Grolier Clubs of New York, Congressional Country and Army, Navy and Marine Clubs of Washington, and the Bibliphile Society and Omar Khayyam Club of Boston. If he has any hobby it has been books, of which he has
been a collector of old and rare items for several years. He has fully cooperated with his brothers in their extensive donations to educational and other institutions, including the disposition of the funds and property that made possible the Ball State Teachers College at Muncie, and the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children at Indianapolis. Mr. Ball is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. His only daughter, Elisabeth Ball, was graduated from Vassar College in 1923.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
JOHN H. TAYLOR, county auditor of Lawrence County, is a native of Kentucky, but has lived most of his life in this Indiana county, and before taking up his duties at Bedford was a carpenter and farmer in Bono Township. He was born in Taylor County, Kentucky, October 16, 1872, son of Charles and Margaret (Cleaver) Taylor. Three years after his birth his parents came to Indiana. Charles Taylor during the Civil war was a member of the Twenty-seventh Kentucky Infantry in the Union army, serving with the Army of the Cumberland. In one battle he was wounded in the hand. By occupation he was a farmer, and both he and his wife lived out their lives in Lawrence County. John H. Taylor grew up in Bono Township, attended the common schools there and finished a course in the Southern Indiana Normal School at Mitchell. As a young man he engaged in educational work for two years at Marshalltown and Bono. He learned the trade of carpenter, engaged in the
building business and also owned and operated a farm in Bono Township. Mr. Taylor since early manhood has been interested in community affairs and local politics. He was elected and served two terms as township assessor, and came from that office to the position of county auditor. He was appointed county auditor to fill the unexpired term of William M. Denniston. Mr. Taylor married, June 13, 1895, Miss Cora Murray, daughter of Milton and Eliza (Todd) Murray. They are the parents of four children: Ruby, Clyde, Mabel and Teddy. Ruby is the wife of Noble Tanksley, and their children are Rollan, Ruth, Rolina, Ronald, Raymond and Ray. Clyde married Ann Allen. Teddy Taylor married Hazel Marshall and has a daughter, Evelyn Marie. Mr. Taylor and family are active members of the Church of the Nazarene.
INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Vol. 5
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
By Charles Roll, A.M.
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931Deb Murray