Judge Huntington belonged to that noted Connecticut family which furnished as a Signer of the Declaration of Independence Samuel Huntington, whose name took its place in Indiana history when the county, township and city of Huntington were simultaneously organized in 1834.

Elisha Mills Huntington was the youngest son of Nathaniel and Mary (Corning) Huntington, and was born March 27, 1806, in Butternuts, New York, receiving his educational training at Canandaigua. After locating in the Middle West he married, November 3, 1841, Mrs. Susan Mary (Rudd) Fitzhugh, born January 8, 1820. She was a daughter of Dr. Christopher Rudd, of Springfield, Washington County, Kentucky, belonging to an old Maryland family closely related to Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. Her mother's name, Ann Benoist Palmer, denotes the Huguenot lineage of Carolina, and John C. Calhoun was a relative through the Caldwell family.

To rare personal beauty, whose charm was famed far beyond the two states of her nativity and adoption, Mrs. Huntington added mental poise and equipment placing her abreast of her husband and in the foremost ranks of Indiana's talented women until the day of her unhappily early death December 3, 1853. On of her latest activities was heading a movement by which a piece of plate was presented to Robert Dale Owen, of New Harmony, in recognition of his services in protecting the rights of women under the new Constitution, adopted, whereby both sexes were place on an equal footing of property ownership in Indiana. One dollar was set as the maximum donation, bu the superb silver pitcher still treasured by Judge Owen's descendants shows that Indiana's grateful women responded appreciatively to Mrs. Huntington's appeal.

For ten years "Mistletoe Lodge" was a name to conjure with among the country-seats bordering the Ohio River, none on either bank surpassing it in lavish hospitality, princely even when measured by old-school standards. Under the low-pitched roof-tree of the rambling mansion were welcomed many notable personages. Around its mahogany both master and mistress prided themselves upon keeping alive and intensifying that neighborly kindness between Indiana and Kentucky, which was the pride and glory of the two sister commonwealths.

Upon selling these broad acres in 1858 to the Swiss Colonization Society, Judge Huntington again took up his residence in Terre Haute, and the streets of a new town were cut through the forests of "Mistletoe Lodge" whose very site became lost under the sidewalks and business houses of a later generation.

Some of his children lived in Cannelton for several years during the sixties and seventies, held there by property interests in the American Cannel Coal Company, of which his brother-in-law, Hamilton Smith, was long the president, but Judge Huntington came back no more. Declining health brought about his end, four years after his departure from the riverside retreat of his happiest years, and he died October 26, 1862, at Saint Paul, Minnesota, whither he had gone seeking strength through a change of climate.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

Dwight Newcomb, a brother of Horatio D. Newcomb, came to Perry County in September, 1851, to look after his brother's interests in the cotton-mill, with no idea of permanent residence, but remained a citizen until his death in 1893. These brothers belonged to a family of twelve children, born in Franklin County, Massachusetts, to Dalton Newcomb and his wife, Harriet Wells, both natives of the Bay State and living in moderate circumstances. Their education was received in the common schools and about 1840 the two brothers came to "the South" as Louisville was regarded, where their Yankee shrewdness laid the foundation for the wealth subsequently attained.

Dwight Newcomb clerked for five years in his elder brother's grocery, then negaged in steamboating for another five years, building in 1849 his own boat, the California, whose command gave him the title of Captain for the rest of his life. He was for a time president of the Indiana Cotton Mills, and in 1855 leased the American Cannel Coal Company's mines, under the firm name, D. Newcomb and Company, the other partners being H. D. Newcomb and James C. Ford. The investment of $42,000 proved extremely profitable, a total dividend of $400,000 eventually remaining after repayment of the original capital.

Captain Newcomb never married, but always lived in bachelor ease, taking a vacation of two or three months each year, and after retiring from active business indulged a fondness for wide travel in Europe and America. His first home in Cannelton was a stone residence on the river front (Now included as part of the Sunlight Hotel) built according to his own designs, with massive oaken finish and furniture, which its name of "Oak Hall" indicated. This, however, he grew tired of and abandoned for a number of years. In 1882 he bought the conspicuous brick dwelling adjoining St. Luke's Episcopal Church, built in 1868 by Judge Charles H. Mason, and lived there until his death, July 4, 1893. His heirs sold the residence and its furnishings to various parties, and the nickname of "Newcomb Place" given it by later occupants, remains the only memento of the Captain himself.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

Ebenezer Wilber was born, 1814, the year of Perry County's organization, but far away from its confines, - in Rensselaer County, New York, and was one of the four children of Samuel and Amy (Cook) Wilber, his mother belonging to a Rhode Island family of extensive Colonial connections. His education was received in his home of Schaghticoke, with one year's training at Lansingburg Academy.

After many years of clerking he made the acquaintance, in Ballston Spa, of Ziba H. Cook (not a relative) the first superintendent of the Indiana Cotton Mills, and through him came to Cannelton in 1850. He first undertook a course of practical experience in textile manufacturing in a New York factory as a preparation for the position which he came West to fill, and the uniform success of his long management of the Cannelton plant proved the thoroughness of his training, down to the minutest detail.

The directors of the mill, in 1865, after five years' appreciation of his valuable services, presented him a costly silver tea and coffee service with massive salver, suitably inscribed, and the connection between superintendent, stockholders and operatives remained on terms of exceptional harmony until the close of his useful life in 1892. He was married in 1853 to Miss Margaret Jackson, of Cannelton, and two sons - out of their five children - are yet living in Perry County.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

Hamilton Smith is a name without which Cannelton's history might never have been recorded as it stands, since to his admirable foresight and the powerful arguments of his pen must be attributed, more than to anything else, that degree of public attention drawn to this region and leading to the material development of Perry County's natural resources at a vital period of national growth.

He was the son of Judge Valentine Smith and Mary ("Polly") Joy, his wife, born September 19, 1804, in Durham, Strafford County, New Hampshire, in the homestead of pure Georgian architecture which an ancestral Smith had built during the year 1736, and which stands in excellent preservation in 1915 in unbroken possession of the family, the personal property of Griswold Smith, Esq. The Smith lineage goes back to Old Hough, England, and their heraldic bearings show the same three wheat-sheaves that are quartered on the shield of Captain John Smith of Virginia. John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his successor, Governor Thomas Dudley, both were direct ancestors of Hamilton Smith.

At the age of twenty-one, after careful preparations, Hamilton Smith entered Dartmouth College, that already venerable and revered institution, the Alma Mater of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Salmon P. Chase and many other truly great Americans. There he won Phi Beta Kappa honours and was graduated summa cum laude with the class of 1829. During a part of these years Chase was a fellow-student, and a friendship there grew up between the two young men which lasted under conditions of unusual warmth and intimacy until the death of the distinguished Chief Justice.

Three years later, in 1832, after reading law in the Washington office of William Wirt and Levi Woodbury, young Smith came to Louisville and entered upon the practice of his chosen profession, following it for fifteen years with notable success. During the disturbed financial conditions of the "thirties" his keen judgement as the representative of sundry large Eastern bankers and merchants contributed to the accumulation of what was then regarded as a handsome fortune. In at least one year his practice amounted to over $30,000 - certainly exceptional at the time, and probably the largest of any attorney then in the West.

His love for the beautiful in nature and art led to the creation of an ideal country estate, "Villula," on the Bardstown pike a few miles from the city, and a showplace among Louisville's suburban homes even long afterward when owned by the Trabue family, of Hawesville. Hither he brought his first wife, Martha Hall, of Bellows Falls, Vermont, but shed died in 1845, after bearing him seven children, of whom but two attained maturity, - Hamilton, Jr., and Martha Hall (Mrs. Alfred Hennen) both deceased.

In 1846 he again married, to Louise Rudd, younger sister to the wife of Judge Huntington, of Indiana, a favourite in Louisville's choicest circles, where her beauty and accomplishments made her an acknowledged belle, ranking alongside her life-time friend, the famous Sallie Ward. Of the union eight children were the fruit, some of whom were born in Cannelton, where several are buried in Cliff Cemetery, beside their parents in the family tomb.

In 1847 Mr. Smith commenced a series of articles in the Lousiville Journal (then edited by George D. Prentice) clearly showing the advantages in power of the extensive Western coal-fields over the Eastern waterfalls and the necessary profits which must acrue from building up manufactories in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, near to coal and to cotton, and on the great natural highways of the continent. Similar contributions to De Bow's Commercial Review, Hunt's Western Magazine, the National Intelligencer and other important periodicals had their effect, of whose results the present generation are yet the beneficiaries.

It was the desire of practically demonstrating the truth of these arguments and inaugurating a new industry that promised so much for the future of the West and the South, which led public-spirited men of Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi to organize the company for building th Cannelton Cotton Mills.

Hamilton Smith was among the foremost of these, one of the heaviest investors, and in the unexpected financial difficulties which frew our of the novelty of the enterprise, with other causes, a large part of his private fortune was sunk beyond redemption in the sacrifice sale of the mill to the Newcomb family. Another instance of the ill-luck proverbially attending the originators of daring and untried ventures.

In December, 1851, he removed with his family to Cannelton, as president of both the cotton-mill and coal companies, taking up his residence in the rive wing of the original hotel building at Front and Adams Streets, which was remodelled for his occupancy and where he lived for the next twenty-two years. Severing his connection with the American Cannel Coal Company, in 1873, he then removed to Washington, but had been there less than two years when - on February 8, 1875 - he died suddenly of heart disease. Death came so swiftly that now words were spoken to his family, nor any recognition made by him of the loved ones around. Unconsciousness took instant possession, and the brilliant light of his life was quenched in darkness without the faintest flicker such as usually foretells the approaching moment of dissolution.

For a score of years Louise Rudd Smith stood as Cannelton's hight type of devoted wife and mother,

Of unfailing kindness and consideration to those outside her immediate circle, in works of charity and piety she was a shining example to the community, her purest joy being to uplift in God's praise before His altar her superb soprano voice, of exceptional range and finished cultivation.

Cannelton was in her husband's thoughts to the last, and within the month of his demise he was actively negotiating plans toward its further advancement, looking to his own return thither, which would probably have been effected within a reasonable time had his life been spared.

But when he came back it was in the silence of death, to depart no more. His obsequies were conducted with solemn simplicity in the sable-draped St. Luke's Church on March 9, 1875. The day was intensely cold, yet the church was crowded and the funeral procession of unequaled length. A pathetic feature was the empty phaeton in which he had driven for many years, drawn by his favourite horse, "Preacher," which one of his devoted former employees led directly behind the hearse,

Through the snow-clad streets and up the winding road to Cliff Cemetery, amid tolling bells from every steeple in Cannelton, the long cortege took its way to the spot selected years before for his last resting place, where all that was mortal of Hamilton Smith was laid, to sleep the sleep that knows no waking, benearth the whispering boughs of two immemorial oaks that have long kept their watch and ward far above the rippling waters of the Beautiful River he loved so well.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

Captain John James may be regarded as father of the Presbyterian society, which was organized early in the ‘fifties, though the congregation endured as such for only a few years. He was born December 28, 1808, in South Wales, the eldest son of Jams and Catherine (Howell) James, of old Welsh stock, and received a liberal education in that language as well as English, his father being a prosperous woolen manufacturer. He married Margaret Jones, also of Wales, who bore him ten children, several of whom lived with their parents in Cannelton until the family removed about 1869 to "Corn Island," near Grandview, and the line is now one of extensive connections in Spencer County.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

As principal the Institute (Franklin Institute) was fortunate in having Professor Paul Schuseter, A.M., born March 20, 1825, in the historic city of Strasburg, Alsace-Lorraine. He was educated in Belgium at one of the Jesuit colleges, and - with neither criticism nor comment upon the ethical system of that body - it was through the training there received during his novitiate that he came to America at the age of twenty-four, a fluent master of seven languages, Greek, Latin, French, English, Spanish, Italian and German.

Soon after reaching Bardstown, Kentucky, where the Jesuits maintained a school noted in its day, he decided that America offered a wide field for individual liberty of development, and in 1849 was released from the temporary vows of a postulant to enter upon his personal career as an educator.

Cincinnati's large foreign element appealed to his cosmopolitanism, and his linguistic attainments quickly gained for the young scholar that position he was best qualified to fill, the chair of Ancient and Modern Languages in some of the leading seminaries, both male and female. From thence the impetus of the Swiss Colonization Society in 1858 brought him into Perry County and to Cannelton.

...A promise was made that within a year the Principal would receive boarders in his own family at cheaper rates, Professor Schuster having married September 8, 1858, Amanda, daughter of Henry P. and Mary (Aikens) Brazee, whose homestead "Mulberry Park" was beside the Ohio River a mile and a half below Cannelton.

This wedding was one among many functions of elegant hospitality which the old mansion witnessed in its prime, and was especially remembered because a supposed supernatural apparition, that for years afterward was reputed to haunt the Cannelton and Tell City river road, had been seen for the first time by some of the reception guests driving from Cannelton. The imaginary spectre was attributed to some phosphorescent gaseous vapour overhaning a low-lying stretch of road. What ever its nature, it was seen by too many responsible parties for its existence to be flatly denied.

The plan for a boarding school, however, was not carried out, Professor Schuster returning some two years later to Cincinnati were in elevating pursuits was spent the remainder of his early life, ending October 9, 1905. While national circumstances forbade the anticipated destiny of Franklin Institute, the lofty ideals of its founder find fulfillment today in one of Cincinnati's noblest institutions, the Schuster School of Expression, in Kemper Lane, Walnut Hills, where stands and edifice whose classic beauty but reflects the inspiring personality of its head, Helen Merci Schuster (Mrs. William Warren Martin), the youngest child of Paul and Amanda (Brazee) Schuster. Ranking among the Queen City's most gifted dramatic readers, Mrs. Schuster-Martin's temperamental enthusiasm gives to her instruction a magnetic quality whose value to pupils is truly inestimable.

Professor Paul Schuster's assistant during the first year of Franklin Institute was J. W. Chaddock, and in the summer of 1859 he obtained the services of a young man just graduated from Genesee College (now Syracuse University), Thomas James de la Hunt, valedictorian of his class and also the winner of first honours in oratory.

His birthplace had been the golden vale of Tipperary, Ireland, though of French parentage, the de la Hunt lineage showing a Huguenot family traced back to the city of Nancy in Lorraine in the Sixteenth Century. On the maternal line, however, appear such typically Irish names as FitzGerald and Plunkett, so the two strains of blood combined in an ardently vivacious temperament which adopted with patriotic enthusiasm America, Indiana and Perry County as a chosen home for the remainder of his too-brief life.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

James Lees, for many years a valuable citizen, was born July 15, 1824, in Ireland though of purely English parentage, his father, John Lees, being a soldier in the Royal Army and having received a medal of honour (yet in possession of his descendants) for service under Wellington in the battle of Waterloo. Brought with the regiment to British America when four years of age, he returned when twelve years old to England, where he completed his school education. In 1842 he entered on the machinist's trade in Dukinfield, Cheshire, (a few miles from the city of Manchester), where April 18, 1849, he married Mary Sharples, coming soon afterward to the United States.

A year was spent in the eastern states, and in the autumn of 1850 he was placed in charge of the Cannelton Cotton Mills' repair shops. This position he filled until made engineer-in-chief, August, 1860, remaining such for a quarter of a century. Meanwhile he had made other investments which enabled him to retire from active labour and, while retaining supervision of the extensive works bearing his name, to enjoy in his closing years that quiet ease of well-ordered home so dear to the English temperament of which he was a typical example.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

Dr. Harmon Strong Clark was easily Cannelton's first leading physician, an eminently successful practitioner and a man of notable personality whose influence and example were powerfully felt in building up all that made a good community. Born, May 26, 1820, at Huntsburg, Geauga County, Ohio, he was the son of Abner and Olive (Strong) Clark, both of whom sprang from old Colonial families of Massachusetts, running back to the day of the "Mayflower" and the Pilgrim Fathers, and still represented in the original homesteads.

After attaining his twenty-first birthday he came into Hancock County, Kentucky, where he taught three terms of school, meanwhile studying medicine for two years with Doctor Stopp, of Lewisport. The new community in Indiana which was growing up on the site of old Coal Haven offered a promising field for a young medical man, hence he located at Cannelton on Sunday, June 20, 1847. As early as 1849 he had a drug store in connection with his practice and afterward expanded this by adding a large general store which met with handsome financial success, besides another in Troy where he also owned a large pork-packing house.

November 3, 1850, he married Hester Ann Rogers, a daughter of Dr. Robert G. and Louisa (Protzman) Cotton, of Troy, and a while later they established their home in the "Willow Cottage" formerly owned by James Boyd on the river front at Cannelton. Three children were born to them, of whom a son and a daughter survive, and in the same house Dr. Clark's lamented death occurred May 5, 1863. His funeral, conducted by the Masonic order of which he was a leading member, was one of the largest ever in Cannelton, a spontaneous tribute of esteem to one of the foremost citizens.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

A professional contemporary, some few years Doctor Clark's junior yet whose early career had been more thrillingly picturesque, was Dr. Magnus Brucker who located in 1849 at Troy. Born September 6, 1828, at Haslach, in Kinzigthale, in Baden, he prepared for college at famous "alt Heidelberg" and was graduated from the French University of Strasburg in Alsace-Lorraine. The enthusiasm of youth and patriotism enlisted him the rebellion of 1848, and when the revolutionists were put down he came by way of Italy as a refugee to America.

From the beginning of his practice in Troy success seemed to wait upon him, and he was serving his adopted country as representative in the Legislature of 1861 when war again broke about him. Immediately enlisting as Regimental Surgeon in the Twenty-third Indiana Volunteer Infantry he served out his full time with patriotic devotion to the cause he had espoused. The appreciative admiration of Perry County's citizens took form in electing him again in 1866 to the same office he had unselfishly quitted for the battle-field in 1861. He lived in the county until his death October 23, 1874, a man of professional eminence and personal nobility.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

One hundred and twenty people made up the full crew (of the steamboat Eclipse) in every capacity, under command of Captain E. T. Sturgeon, so the passengers were literally on a floating hotel, with servants trained to anticipate every wish. Among the officers for several seasons was a Perry County man, Martin Frank, then in his early twenties, who had spent six years in flatboating between his birthplace (Harrison County) and New Orleans, thus acquiring an intimate knowledge of both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. This experience, added to three years (1857-60) on board the Eclipse, made him a valuable auxiliary in the Federal gunboat service which he entered in 1861, after on year of farm life in Perry County, following his marriage with Amanda E. Hoyne, of Tobin Township. He was present at the talking of Fort Donelson, at the surrender of Vicksburg, and his boat was near when Arkansas Post fell, having carried dispatches to General Grant. The close of the war also terminated his career as pilot and he returned to farming, which he followed with financial success for many years until ready to retire from active life, then living in Cannelton until his death, in March, 1913.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

In the regular Memphis trade the Commercial (steamboat) was for years a particular local favourite because commanded by a Cannelton man, Captain Samuel Archer. His boat was noted during the War Between the States as the first on ever flying the Confederate flag clear from Memphis into the port of Louisville. Needless to say, this act of daring was not often repeated, nor copied by others, yet Captain Archer and his wife (Burnetta Mason) remained ardent Southern sympathizers.

Quinine worth its weight in gold and contraband besides, was smuggled through the lines in a rag doll, as belonging to their daughter, Mollie Archer (Mrs. Charles Schmuck, later Mrs. Hofmeister), who accompanied her parents on several trips to Memphis, and the hem of her dress skirt was likewise laden with the priceless drug.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916

The year 1857 was consumed in laying out the town site (Tell City) preparatory for immigration, and the earliest arrival of residents was on March 13 1858, Charles Steinauer being one of the three or four who came then. He was just thirty years of age, having been born March 17, 1828, in Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, one of five sons and two daughters who were the children of Benedict and Gertrude (Effinger) Steinauer. Receiving a liberal education in his home, he crossed the ocean at the age of twenty-two to seek new fortune in America, locating first in Cincinnati, where he engaged in business until coming to Indiana. His natives talents had identified him with the colonization movement from its inception, and he ably filled many positions of high responsibility in the county which he made his home for the rest of his life, or until February 28, 1891.

He was an active and valuable Republican, and while never an office seeker consented to serve as County Commissioner from 1881 to 1884. Spending his life as a bachelor, his only remaining relatives in Tell City are collateral descendants springing from the marriage of his brother, August Steinauer, to Antonia Steinauer (not a relative). The two brother's first business venture in Tell City was the earliest hotel opened there, kept in the "Mistletoe Lodge" residence which had been Judge Huntington's home, situate on the river front between Gutenberg and Washington Streets. This they followed for two years, then entered upon the manufacture of flour in which the family has continued up to the present with marked success.

Perry County
A History
by Thomas de la Hunt
The W.K. Stewart Company, Indianapolis
Published 1916