LaPorte County, Indiana - Chapter 25: Writers and Literature, 1904

Chapter 25: Writers and Literature

In 1876 Lieutenant Thomas S. Cogley, of Michigan City, wrote and published the "History of the Seventh Indiana Cavalry Volunteers," a book of two hundred and sixty-seven pages. The copy in the writer's possession is beautifully bound in morocco with gilt edges. In the pref¬ ace, which was written at Michigan City, No¬ vember 1, 1876, the author says, -

"There never was, never can be, and never will be, a complete history of any war written; although the greater portion of the history of all countries relates to war. The great volume of blood is not complete until it has the personal ex¬ perience of each individual soldier. But such a record can be approximated, so far as integral portions of armies are concerned, by works of this character. Although this is a history of the Seventh Indiana Cavalry, yet it is by no means complete; because it does not contain the indi¬ vidual history of every member of the regiment. Even if it were possible to obtain the information necessary for such a work, to publish it, would require several volumes of the size of this, the expense of which, with its necessarily limited sale, would forbid such an undertaking.

"Although this only purports to be the his¬ tory of a single military organization, yet it is more. It is as complete a history of the opera¬ tions of the armies with which the regiment was connected, as will be found in works of greater pretensions. All of it, except such portions as relate solely to the organization of the regiment, will be of interest to the general reader."

Thomas S. Cogley was born November 24, 1840, at Liberty, Union county, Iowa. His father, Robert Cogley, was a physician in that town. In 1859 Thomas came to LaPorte county r which was afterwards his home. At the out¬ break of the rebellion he was attending school in LaPorte. On going to dinner from school one day, he read for the first time President Lincoln's call for seventy thousand volunteers, and on his way back to school he stepped into a recruiting office and enlisted. On arriving in Indianapolis the company had more names on its roll than could be mustered with it. The officers selected the number they were authorized to muster, leav¬ ing out some fifteen or twenty others, among whom was young Cogley. They felt as if they were disgraced for life, and some of them got together and resolved not to return to LaPorte to be laughed at. Cogley enlisted in Company C, Eighth Indiana Regiment, of three monthsr troops, was at the battle of Rich Mountain in West Virginia, and was mustered out with the company at the expiration of the term of enlist¬ ment. He then returned to LaPorte, thinking he could do so with honor. He enlisted several times afterward, was in many battles, was re¬ peatedly wounded, was taken prisoner but escaped, and his war record is an exceedingly interesting one. At the close of the war he re¬ turned to LaPorte, took two courses of law lectures at Ann Arbor, and entered the law office of Hon. Mulford K. Farrand, as a student. He was admitted to the bar November 9, 1866, Hon. Andrew L. Osborn being judge of the circuit court. At the May term, 1874, on motion of General Thomas M. Browne, Mr. Cogley was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of In¬ diana, and of the United States circuit court. In December, 1869, he was united in marriage to Miss Mary L. Farrand. The History of the Seventh Indiana Cavalry was his first attempt in literature.

Mr. B. F. Taylor has given many literary productions of a very high character. His home was in LaPorte for many years. He was born in Lowville, New York, July 19, 1819, and grad¬ uated from Madison University in 1839. He be¬ came literary editor of the Chicago Evening Journal. During the Civil war he was its war correspondent for the western armies, and his let¬ ters attracted much attention, many of them be¬ ing translated and published in European papers. After the war he was a public lecturer for many years. He finally moved to Syracuse, New York, and to Cleveland, Ohio, where he died, February 24, 1887, and where, at last accounts, his wife still lives, the sister of Mrs. Learning. He was a poet and miscellaneous author, as well as jour¬ nalist, war correspondent and lecturer. He was the author of "Attractions of Language" 1845), "January and June" (1853), "Pictures of Life in Camp and Field" (1871), "The World on Wheels" (1874), "Song of Yesterday" (1877), "Between the Gates" (1878), "Summer Savory" etc. ((1879), "Dulce Domum" (1884), "Theoprilus Trent" (a novel, 1887), etc. His poems include "Isle of Long Ago," "Rhymes of the River," and "The Old Village Choir."' The "Isle of Long Ago" may be found on page 591 of Chapman's History of LaPorte county.

Writing of shadows, we saw a sad sight on a Michigan Southern train - a woman in the tan¬ gled mazes of insanity. Young, wondrous fair, with a clear, soft eye, and hair that Petrarch's Laura might have sighed for, with a sprightly mind and a gentle spirit, she was, it was feared, hopelessly crazed. Her friends were taking her to the Asylum at Indianapolis, but sadly as to the grave.

One who would have been all the world to her. fell in Virginia in the front rank, and the bullet that found his heart out, struck a gentle girl as well. She was waiting at home for her ' bold soldier boy." Her madness was mildness ; she fancied she could fly, and waved her white hands, singing all the while, snatches of songs and fragments of hymns. One moment it would be the bugle-like strain of, and all along she would call in most persuasive tones - "Henry, Henry," listen an instant for a response that never came, and laugh so like "sweet bells jangled out of time."

It was not hard, knowing as much of her story as we did, to tell who Henry was ; it was he that slept in his bloody vestments in some grave of the Old Dominion. Her friends stopped at the Salem Crossing, and as the train swept on, we caught a glimpse of those white hands as she waved them from the platform.

It was a sad, sad sight - one of the works of the war: and the poor girl's shattered fate strews somebody's threshold. Thank God it is not yours nor mine. Thank God it is no patriots. "Henry" dead to her, and she. dead to the world, shall join hands and stand witnesses forever against traitors. - Herald, Feb. 15, '62.

Another LaPorte county writer is Miss Cecilia E. Wilkinson, bom in LaPorte county, the daughter of Richard H. and Julia A. (Hanley) Wilkinson, of New Durham township. Her par¬ ents were of honorable connection. She was for many years a school teacher, teaching suc¬ cessfully in Monon, Rensselaer, LaPorte and Hammond, and living several years in Chicago. Her ancestry on her father's side was largely professional, in the lines of law, medicine and theology ; on her mother's side many of her con¬ nections were in high political offices. The Hon. Thomas J. Henley, M. C., first from Indiana and then from California, was her mother's only brother. The Hon. Barcley Henley, in 1890 an M. C. from California, is her cousin. She has traveled largely in the United States and Canada. She has never cared for the forms of conventional society, hates cruelty and injustice, and now lives a retired life in LaPorte, caring for an aged mother, eccentric, possessing many rare moral and intellectual qualities, and is little known. The LaPorte Herald of March 11, 1902, contained the following concerning her: "Miss Cecilia E. Wilkinson, a well known teacher of this county, has the only diploma of the Indiana Teachers' Reading Circle in the county. It is accepted by the state board of edu¬ cation in lieu of examination in the science of education and literature. Only a four years' course is required in order to get a diploma, but Miss Wilkinson has been reading since 1 886. The Teachers' Association was organized in 1883."

Under different noms de plume she has writ¬ ten largely for different periodicals, and many of her productions show wit, pathos, and good thought, and some of them are of high merit. When the second edition of "Local and National Poets of America" was in progress, a large royal octavo volume of twelve hundred and fifty-eight pages, the editors wrote to her for some of her productions and she submitted fifty short articles and poems, out of which they selected two. They may be found on page 1148, and one of them is the following:

Discontent

Many of Miss Wilkinson's productions, waifs we might call them,, which have appeared in the local papers, are worthy of a more permanent place. Out of many we select the following, which appeared in 1903 :

Mrs. Sara Andrew Shafer, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. George L. Andrew, of Chicago, and wife of Carlton Shafer, Esq., has won a successful place in the literary world. Her par¬ ents lived for many years in LaPorte, and Mrs. Shafer's early life was spent here. For some years Mr. and Mrs. Shafer have resided in Balti - more, Maryland, but recently they have moved to LaPorte, where they have been welcomed with warm hearts and open arms by all their old friends, and where Mr. Shafer has formed a law co-partnership with Hon. W. B. Biddle.

In a fine volume entitled "Historic Towns of Southern States," Mrs. Shafer has a chapter on "Frederickstown," and another on "Annapolis." In a companion volume entitled "Historic Towns of Northern States," she has a chapter on "Mackinac." Both of these books are published by Putnam's Sons. Recently the Macmillan Company has issued a book of which Mrs. Shafer is the author, entitled, "The Day Before Yester¬ day," which is said to draw its characters from LaPorte. It has met with such a popular recep¬ tion that it has already passed into the second edition. Out of a great mass of notices of this book, there is only one unfavorable one. Though the book has a manifest northern atmosphere about it, the Charleston (S. C.) Courier com¬ mends it highly. Mrs. Elizabeth Darling Hull, formerly of this city, says the first chapter is well worth the price of the work, it is so beauti¬ fully written ; others, that if one had never been acquainted with any of the characters the book would be enjoyed as a delightful child's story. The Baltimore Sun speaks in the highest terms of "The Day Before Yesterday," of which it says: "Sweet as the breath of June roses is this dainty story of the days of childhood," which it ranks with Kenneth Graham's "Dream Days." Even the Atlantic Monthly speaks of it with favor.

The writer of this history has done some¬ thing in literature. In former years he has been connected with the press in Boston, New York city, and elsewhere. He founded the paper. Every Saturday, published in Detroit, and for many years has been a writer of magazine arti¬ cles. At first he was not inclined to select any of his productions to appear here, believing that the reader would be satiated with these pages which are printed with little revision and just as they drop from the pen ; but at the earnest solicita¬ tion of friends, especially of the one whom years ago at the marriage altar he promised to obey, he has been induced to make two selections.

At one time I was never weary of looking at the Washington monument. It is a true work of art, because man has done so little and per¬ mitted nature to do so much. What has man done? He has piled stone on stone, making a plain, four sided shaft, severe in its simplicity, decreasing from the base according to a certain angle, and abruptly slanting to a pyramid at the top. Man has simply conformed to mathemat¬ ical and other laws established by nature, and which he could not change.

And now see what nature has done. Though that cold shaft is a most solid, it is at the same time a most spirituelle structure. It melts away into the clouds. I have seen it when its top could not be distinguished from the mists, but seemed to coalesce with them. At night it gives forth a lurid, phosphorescent light more powerful than the electric glare of the city. Again it rises like a white spectre against the background of an inky sky. Sometimes its top is lost far above the clouds. In sunshine the light gleams like a star from the metallic point of its apex. There are times when, observing it from an oblique po¬ sition, one of its sides appears white as the driven snow, while the other is dark. Ride toward it or from it in the street cars, and the monument approaches or recedes, enlarges or diminishes - the monument does this, not the observer; such is the striking sensation. It is never twice alike. It has its moods, and its changes of color and ap¬ pearance, like the Swiss Alps. Sometimes not its top but its base is lost in the clouds, while the top is bright. This is when the blue mist for fully two hundred feet lies dense in the Potomac valley. Though of humble position - the very banks of the Potomac, it towers aloft, and is seen from afar. I have seen it in the sun and mists, when, two hundred feet from its base, there was a section of purple and pink surmounted with a white, blazing column hundreds of feet high flashing back the sun set glow against the welkin blue. I have seen it again with a cold, grey base rising above the deep green foliage that from a distance appears to surround it, with the dark blue highlands of Arlington beyond; and overtopping these, the magnificent shaft pierced the heavens far above the horizon line, till the top was lost in a sea of fleecy clouds. I have seen it in a thunder storm when its west face was black, the white completely blotted out, but at every flash of lightning the entire, wet east face gleamed and flashed like a polished sword of the Titans with startling suddenness, and a ghastly streak of electricity seemed to leap from earth to sky. There is no other monument in the world that can exhibit such phases. Verily, what has man done to make the Washington monument a work of art! How puny his efforts! He has done very little - simply stepped aside that na¬ ture might appear. So with all true art; it is a transparent window through which the Divine is seen.

There is one other selection from his own pro¬ ductions which the writer makes, both by request and because it is connected with an event which is historic, both in LaPorte county and in the nation. On Saturday, September 14, 1901,

President McKinley passed away under circum¬ stances too well known to need repetition here. On the following day the pulpits of LaPorte, and doubtless of the whole county, were eloquent in their sorrow. On Thursday, September 19, there was a monster mass meeting in front of the court house in LaPorte. Party lines were obliterated. The city officers, the G. A. R. post and other orders, the factory 4 operatives, the hose companies, and the school children headed by their teachers, all turned out in solemn parade. The band played national airs and dirges. A stand had been eretced, which was occupied by the speakers and others. Mr. John A. Wood, Superintendent of Schools, presided. Rev. R. H. Hartley, D. D., in prayer commended the Nation to God. The G. A. R. quartette sang ap¬ propriate songs. Superintendent Wood spoke on behalf of the schools. Hon. Martin R. Suth¬ erland spoke as the representative of the bench and bar. Rev. Frank A. Morgan spoke on behalf of the merchants and manufacturers. There was never just such a meeting in the county. Both as a whole and in every particular it was im¬ pressive beyond any description. The atmos¬ phere was of such a quality that the voices of the speakers could be heard by all, and many thous¬ ands of people stood around and listened with bated breath. Among the exercises the writer of these lines, as the representative of Patton Post, G. A. R., read the following poem which he had prepared in the still hours of the previous night :

A Tribute Of Love

As the writer recalts the above occasion, and many others in which he has participated during the past eleven years in this county, he finds that the roots of his affections have struck deep in the soil of LaPorte county affairs, and ramified in all directions, to an extent of which he has not been aware.

In the August election of 1850, the Hon. John B. Niles was chosen as a delegate to the conven¬ tion which was to prepare a new constitution for the state. The convention met in January, 1851, and began the work of devising the supreme legal instrument for the government of the state. Mr. Xiles was an active member of that body. The convention had under consideration the propriety of exempting the family homestead from execu¬ tion. Mr. Niles arose in his place and made a remarkable speech, which was very largely copied by the papers of the country at the time, and with the most favorable comment. A long extract of this speech may be seen in Chapman's History of LaPorte County, pages 581-584, and it shows literary and mental qualities of a high order, in harmony with the scholarship which Mr. Niles was known to possess.

The Hon. Jasper Packard made many excel¬ lent speeches. One of them may be found in Chapman's History, beginning on page 589. It is a memorial address delivered at the decoration of the graves of the Union soldiers, and possesses true beauty of thought and diction.

Mrs. Emma F. Molloy, wife of Mr. Edward Molloy, editor of the LaPorte Herald , was known in the literary world for many years before her death. She showed herself to be an indefatiga¬ ble worker, both in the temperance and prison reformatory movements of the age, and so suc¬ cessful was she that there was scarcely a locality which did not know of her. She began a literary career quite early in life, writing articles for the papers at the early age of thirteen. But it was mostly on the rostrum that she attained her dis¬ tinction. She had a very valuable engrossed tes¬ timonial signed by ex-Govemor Thomas Talbot, of Massachusetts, Rev. A. A. Miner, president of Tufts College, Wendell Phillips, and many others who presented it to her personally. At the first annual reunion of the Eighty-seventh Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, held in Hunts¬ man's Hall, LaPorte, September 24, 1869, s^e read a poem which she had written for the occa¬ sion, and which reveals her mental qualities. It covers pages 586-588 of Chapman's History.

In the year 1899 Mrs. Clara J. Armstrong published, through the R. R. Donnelly & Sons Company, Chicago, a beautiful little book of orig¬ inal poems. The book was put forth more espe¬ cially as a tribute of devotion to her many friends. The poems are sweet and refreshing and breathe a pure spirit. In the preface she says : herein was written, and materially LaPorte has changed. She has extended her boundaries in every direction, and has become more populous. The one long street for trade has now several branches, and room has been made at different points for various thriving industries. But the spirit of peace still nestles in the shade of her streets and long avenues, and she still retains that quiet, restful atmosphere which makes her distinctively a city of Sweet Homes."

In 1903 the Rev. R. H. Sanders, for forty years a minister of the Northwest Indiana Con¬ ference of the Methodist Episcopal church, now retired and living in LaPorte, though still hale and hearty, put out a book entitled, "The Men Behind the Bars, or Lights and Shades, of Prison Life." S. B. Shaw, of Chicago, was the pub¬ lisher. It is a very readable octavo of three hun¬ dred and sixteen pages, containing fourteen illus¬ trations. It has twenty-three chapters, each one of which discusses an interesting and important subject. The object of the work may be seen by the following extracts from the preface :

During the wardenship of Charley Harley, George A. H. Shidler, and the present warden, James D. Reid, I have been frequently called to supply the place of chaplain in the Indiana State Prison. During my visits there, which at times were extended indefinitely, besides conducting religious services, such as the Christian Endeavor meetings in the school room of the prison, and preaching in the prison chapel at the regular services, I was given at all times the privilege of visiting the prisoners in their cells, where I spent many Sabbath afternoons. In this way I was brought into close personal contact with the men, many of whom told me of the unfortunate cir¬ cumstances leading up to their incarceration, and expressed earnest desire to be helped back to a better life. I became deeply impressed with a sense of their sad condition. Many of them, I felt, were not at heart criminals, but rather the creatures of unfortunate circumstances. I was also impressed with the thought, that the out¬ side world did not understand, or knew but little of the real nature and condition of many of these men. These impressions led to the production of this volume.

The leading design of the author in the pre¬ sentation of this humble volume to the public has been to awaken a deeper interest in behalf of the one hundred thousand prisoners of this country, and thus lead all who have the best in¬ terests of humanity at heart, in the Spirit of the Divine Master, to put forth more earnest efforts for their rescue. Also, to seek aid, and help to provide means and methods, by which the large class of unfortunate children, in our large cities and elsewhere, may be saved from entering upon, and continuing a criminal career.

Doubtless many in LaPorte county have read, "Snap Shots at City Life," in the Chicago Chron¬ icle. The author is Jean Cowgill, daughter of Mrs. Juliet Cowgill, still living, who was the daughter of Samuel Burns, of Westville, in an early day. Jean was born in Kankakee, Illinois, October 5, 1871. She was reared on a cattle ranch in Dakota, and did not go to school until she was fifteen. Her nurse maids were cowboys. She began to write about three years ago on Harper's Weekly, since which time she has been regularly connected with that paper. Since Sep¬ tember, 1902, she has been a member of the Chronicle editorial staff. She was also on the editorial staff of the New York Daily A lews and the Daily Herald. She proposes now to devote most of her time to the writing of magazine articles.

Mrs. J. B. Newkirk, sister of Hon. C. H. Cathcart, for years an inmate of the Ruth C. Sabin Home in LaPorte, in recent years has written and published, at her own expense, two large octavo volumes. One is entitled, "The Captives," containing the experience of her father, James Leander Cathcart, who was eleven years a prisoner in Algiers. The other volume is entitled, "Tripoli." It is the letter book of James Leander Cathcart, first consul to Tripoli, and contains the inner history of Tripoli's war with the United States. Both volumes are full of interest and valuable for reference.

The Hon. Eugene W. Davis, of Galena town¬ ship, whose biographical sketch appears in an¬ other part of this work, has for many years been a contributor to agricultural papers. He is a recognized authority on the raising of plums, and has an orchard comprising all the approved varieties.

Mrs. B. A. Davis, his wife, whose sketch also appears elsewhere, has written many things which show wit and pathos and have true merit, from among which we select the following:

Change Of Name On The Death Of A Little Girl, Thirteen Years Old

Mr. C. D. Hess, who a generation ago was an operatic manager and impressario of extraordi¬ nary talent, and who for some ten or twelve years has been living in retirement on his farm, which he calls his "Hoosier ranch," near Westville, has been engaged for some time in writing a novel dealing with the early period of grand opera in America. He had long and varied experience in this line, both in this and in foreign countries. He was in close contact with the operatic stars of his time, and draws his characters from them. At the age of thirteen he entered the profession and when twenty-one years of age he became a manager. He managed the Baltimore Museum, Grover's National Theatre, Washington, D. C. ; The Olympic Theatre, New York; the Pittsburg Opera House, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania ; and Crosby's Opera House, Chicago, in the days when Forrest, Murdock, John Drew (the elder), Neafie, Barney Williams, Proctor, Charlotte Cushman, Julia Dean, Eliza Logan, Jean Daven¬ port, (afterward Lander), Olive Logan, Couldock, Buchanan, Charles Kean, Wallack Daven¬ port, Lotta, and other renowned artists were the stars who played their annual round of engage¬ ments in the theatres which he managed. The partners of Mr. Hess were some of the most re¬ nowned theatre managers of the time with whom his associations were generally most agreeable* Pages might be written here of most interesting matter concerning the experience of Mr. Hess, and from all this, in connection with his well known abilities, some judgment may be formed as to what the forth-coming volume will be. He was not only a manager but had large expe¬ rience in the dramatic line himself. He says, "In rural life I have found much happiness, and it is probable that I shall live a farmer's life to the -end of my days. I find there is no place in the world- where the mind will work so clearly or where one can recall such pleasant memories of the past or write his memoirs or reminiscences or -do other literary work so easily and so well as on a farm. No obstacles to literary inspiration are to be found amid orchards of peaches, pears, apples and grapes, nor in wheat or rye fields nor in pleasant pastures where the milk cows graze nor yet in the wild woods when the snow is on Ihe ground and the frost festoons the trees. Can

Among LaPorte county authors may be men¬ tioned also John M. Barclay, the author of "Bar¬ clay's Digest." He was reared in Washington, but came to LaPorte County to live, first on the farm now owned by Joshua Watson near Union Mills, and latterly in LaPorte. In the forties he was made assistant clerk in the House of Representatives at Washington. There also are John Mundy, Esq., formerly of LaPorte, but for many years an attorney in Chicago, who is the author of two very popular juvenile works; Dr. Orpheus C. Evarts, who is the author of a book of poems ; Rev. George R. Streeter, a for¬ mer Methodist Episcopal pastor in LaPorte, who wrote the popular book, "Athens," the story of a college bred minister; Dr. Franklin Hunt, author of "The Stream of Life," a chronological chart in the form of a river; Revs. George M. Boyd and John L. Smith, each of whom wrote a history of Indiana Methodism; the late Mrs. Dudley L. Wadsworth, nee Addie M. Buchtel, a successful writer of short stories for the popular magazines, who passed away December 12, 1901 ; Professor W. N. Hailman, Ph. D., former superintendent of schools in LaPorte, now an author of school books and educational works and a noted lecturer on education ; William P. Burns, late of Michigan City, professor of history in Columbia University, University Park, Oregon; young Miss Morris, a story writer of Michi¬ gan City ; Jacob Reighard, L. B. Swift and wife, Claire Osborn Reed, Grace (Eliza) Darling, and many, many others; and besides all these there are hundreds in the ordinary walks of life, each one of whom has produced something worthy the name of literature ; for, as Emerson has said, every person is eloquent at least once in his life.