Myron Fitch Barbour: Coming Home
This is the fifth installment in the life of my third great-grandfather, Myron Fitch Barbour.
A late-in-life photo of Myron Fitch Barbour, possibly around the time of his second marriage.
Myron returned home in 1850 at age 39 from his great adventure in the goldfields of California. He had five children ranging from age ten to a one-year old. His wife Jane was only 33, but there would be no more children. These were busy years of raising the kids and making a living.
The United States that Myron and Jane knew in 1850 had thirty states and a population of 23 million. That was nearly a doubling of the population since Myron was a 19-year old, and an addition of six states. By the end of the decade there would be thirty-three states and nine territories with 31 million residents. Millard Fillmore was president, a Whig, the last president to be elected who was neither a Republican or Democrat.
Every decade is filled with local and national events that impact us. But the 1850s was particularly consequential for the United States as tensions over slavery increased and the country inched towards Civil War. Congress passed the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law in September 1850; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852, and Kansas gained its nickname “Bleeding Kansas” due to battles in the territory between pro-slavery and abolition groups. In 1857 the Dred Scott Decision stunned the country by upholding slavery in U.S. territories, declaring the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be unconstitutional, and ruling that Blacks had no right to citizenship in the U.S. (The Missouri Compromise, in addition to other components, restricted slavery to territories south of the latitude 36°30 parallel.)
For most of the decade, it was also a boom time in Fort Wayne and the nation. In 1851 a committee petitioned the Indiana legislature to encourage immigration to meet the labor needs of the northern part of the state. Unfortunately, city and state residents were interested only in Western European immigrants. The state asked counties to vote on whether to allow free Blacks to move to Indiana. Allen County voted 1,803 against, with 261 in favor. That fall, a new state constitution passed that prohibited the entry of Black people.
In Fort Wayne work began in 1852 to bring the railroad to town. The first Allen County Fair began and Colerick’s Hall was built. The latter was an entertainment venue that made it possible for the city to attract major speakers and productions, especially once the city was fully linked by rail. That happened with some fits and starts. There were struggles with financing, and that was even before the Panic of 1857 hit the nation. It was another in the once-a-decade financial cycles of the 1800s. This one was short-lived and the country recovered by the start of the Civil War, but in the downturn there was a stock market decline, hundreds of thousands of workers laid off, commercial credit dried up and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad was one of a handful forced to shut down.
In an 1857 election, however, Fort Wayne voters authorized the city to grant a contract with a company to illuminate city streets with gas lighting. Property owners paid according to how much frontage they had. Myron had 100 feet. Fort Wayne was rapidly changing into a lively industrial center.
Myron and the Fight For Free Public Schools
During this decade, there was another struggle - that of establishing free public schools. Like the railroad it happened in fits and starts and involved the “pioneer school teacher,” Myron. In 1848 the eligible voters of the town approved a measure to create such schools by measure of 1,293 to 440. As if to back this up, the new 1851 state constitution directed the General Assembly to provide by law a “uniform system of common schools” that were to be tuition-free. The Assembly passed a law mandating state and local taxes.
Nothing happened in Fort Wayne until 1853, though, when the city council approved $1,200 to actually get the ball rolling. Surprisingly there was such vehement opposition that the school board members all resigned. In 1854, with a new school board, the town council implemented a tax and many city residents pledged donations. Finally, property was purchased for two schools. But that same year, the Indiana Supreme Court declared the law mandating township taxation for schools to be unconstitutional.
This obviously threw a kink in things, but in 1857 the Clay School, a three-story brick building accommodating 500 students, opened. In the fall an identical building, the Jefferson School followed (both named for the streets they were on). The only way such large schools would be able to operate, leaders told parents, was with the strictest of discipline. They were to impress upon their children the importance of good behavior.
Now there were buildings, and principals and teachers were hired. But a bitter fight over continuing to fund the schools raged till 1859. Heated debates, personal altercations and court actions that are hard to understand now occurred. A mass meeting was held at the courthouse to pledge support for free public schools. The mayor was elected on a “Free Schools Platform.” This was followed by another group getting a court injunction to stop the council from paying out funds appropriated for school operations.
In the summer of 1858 a committee formed to solicit donations to keep the schools running for the 1858-59 school year. Myron was appointed to collect these pledges, which were called subscriptions in the tradition of subscription schools. As a real estate agent, he collected rent. Maybe this was seen as a natural extension of that. Obviously he was deemed trustworthy. As a former subscription school teacher, he was also known for his support of free public schools.
An ad appeared in Dawson’s Fort Wayne Weekly Times:
The Free Schools of this city are to be open Monday, the 16th of January 1860.
Those persons who subscribed last year for the support of these Schools, and have not paid their subscriptions, are earnestly requested to pay Mr. M.F. Barbour….By Order of the Board of Trustees. T. Tigar, Pres.
In December, Myron turned over $1,031. To put this amount in perspective, teachers were paid $30 a month during the months school was in session. Fort Wayne was paying from $250 to $400 per year to teachers. (Common laborers earned 75 cents a day and skilled brick masons made $1.50 per day. School janitors made as much or a little more than most teachers.) It was a good sum, but of course it wasn’t nearly enough. The board also had to pay for construction bills that came due on the Jefferson School. A group of wealthy town leaders met this crisis by mortgaging some of their own property (with promises of repayment) and paid the bills.
The school board was forced to close the schools in 1859, however, due to the lack of funds and a debt of over $16,000. They issued a proclamation thanking all the teachers for their efforts and sent them on their way. The board nevertheless again enlisted Myron’s help in collecting another round of donations.
It was decided that the schools would reopen in January 1860, with the teachers working as private contractors. Just as in former days, parents had to pay the teacher to send their child to school. The city still paid for a superintendent. He tried to move the schools forward and adopted McGuffey Readers in 1861. A few years later a new superintendent adopted Wilson’s Readers, Robinson’s mathematical textbooks and the Spencerian System of Penmanship. Henry C. Spencer himself came to town to train the teachers in his methods.
In 1861 Indiana’s public school law was declared unconstitutional throwing things into limbo. New legislation was enacted, but the funding problems were not fixed. Meanwhile, the Civil War soon put school issues on the back burner.
In 1863 a school enumeration report found that there were 4,779 school age children in the city. Only 698 were enrolled in the city schools. Discipline and morale were low. Where were all the kids?
The Barbours sent their children to private schools, first because they had to, and later by choice. Sylvia and probably Lida attended Fort Wayne Female Seminary and Lucius attended the Fort Wayne Collegiate Institute, which was in the same building. In the 1860s, with the ease of travel that the railroad brought, these three were sent to Presbyterian boarding schools in Ohio; the Ohio Female College for the girls and for Lucius, Antioch College’s Preparatory Department. Ella was an invalid and though she attended school in Fort Wayne, probably was kept home from boarding school.
Myron Cassius may have also attended the Collegiate Institute, but he was placed in the public schools. There are a number of reasons possible. The private schools had entrance examinations. Maybe he did not meet their requirements. Then, attitude and behavior may have been a factor. He was expelled from School No. 1 - the Clay School - in 1863 due to misbehavior. It must have been at least a little embarrassing for Myron and Jane, what with Myron’s history as a teacher and his work for the schools. When the board expelled Myron C. and three other boys, they told the parents the boys could not return unless the parents would be personally responsible for their behavior. Most likely, Myron C.’s formal education ended then. He was 17 and not a little boy. “The spirit of insubordination continued to prevail,” the author of a school history wrote,” and four teachers resigned. Fort Wayne’s public school problems were not resolved till after the war.
Business
In the spring of 1854, Herman Melville published a short story called “The Lightning-Rod Man.” At the time of the story, this salesman would have been a familiar presence to readers. A growing number of lightning rod salesmen had begun to wander the villages and backroads of America, pitching their wares. The devices had existed for about a century, but as homemade affairs. What was new were factory-made lightning rods sold and installed by lightning rod dealers. Myron became one of them.
In 1857, Myron hired William H. Myers to sell lightning rods for him at a fixed salary. He continued in that position until July 1859 when Myron fired him. Unemployed, William cast about for a way to make a living, when a “sympathizing friend came forward and furnished the means” for him to start his own lightning rod business.
In fall 1860, William filed a lawsuit against his former employer for recovery of the title to a certain property which he said Myron had not legally obtained. William’s brother Wallace Myers was slated to be a witness in the case.
In December 1860, Wallace was indicted in Steuben County Circuit Court for forgery and held on bail. A few weeks later, William was arrested by the sheriff of Williams County, Ohio and extradited to Ohio on a charge of forgery. This apparently caused gossip and speculation of “malicious prosecution,” with the goal being to affect the outcome of the property case. Days after his arrest William sent a letter to Dawson’s Fort Wayne Daily Times.
“When all the facts are brought to light, the case will present one of the most wicked attempts to destroy an innocent man that history records, and it is due to myself and family that they should be made public,” William wrote. He was a good employee of Myron’s business and brought in a nice profit for the company. The two had a falling out that had nothing to do with the business, he said. When he started his own lightning rod company, Myron was unhappy with competition. “And now it seems that Mr. Barbour has determined to persecute me “to the death,” and as a means to accomplish this he caused the indictment to be found upon which I have been arrested,” William said.
The facts in the forgery case, according to him, were that he sold a man named Mr. Shirts $10 worth of lightning rods and took a promissory note signed by Shirts to pay Myron Barbour within eighteen months. “I soon handed over this note, with others…to Barbour, in whose possession it remained until it became due, when it was sent to Williams County for collection.” Upon presentation of the bill, Mr. Shirts denied ever having signed the note. William continued his lengthy letter accusing Myron of villainy and attempting to ruin him and his family.
As is so often the case, there was nothing further in the newspaper about the property case or either of the Myers brothers’ forgery cases.
Myron’s business as a lightning rod dealer seems fairly large scale. The 1860 census showed that Myron had a houseful – eight “lightning rod peddlers” lived with the family. It was a time when many jobs came with room and board and apparently when Myron’s salesmen weren’t traveling, they were housed with the Barbours. He also had a housekeeper, Mary O’Brian, and a young domestic. With Jane and their five children, there were seventeen people under one roof.
The 1860 census asked heads of household the value of their real estate and “personal estate.” Myron placed the value of his real estate at $8,000 and his personal estate at $2,000. This contrasts with a doctor who lived two doors down from him and was almost the same age who had $3,000 in property and $200 in his personal estate. A carriage maker who lived next door and had property worth $1,500. There was plenty of competition in the lightning rod market, but it was lucrative. Typically, a protective system for one house cost between $65 and $200, or five to ten percent of the cost of building a medium-sized house.
Underlining the sudden market for lightning rods were a number of factors including the commodification of risk. It was similar to companies selling home security systems today. Electricity was still a mysterious and frightening thing. There was also a bit of status in having the new, fancy contraptions attached to one’s home or barn, showing how technologically savvy, prudent and well-off one was.
Eventually Myron fazed out his lightning rod business and put all his energy in his real estate career. The court case involving the Meyer brothers wouldn’t be Myron’s last time in court. He had to take others to court, and he was also sued.
A Challenging Decade
October 2, 1860, the “Little Giant,” Stephen A. Douglas, presidential candidate, spoke before a crowd said to be 60,000 strong in Fort Wayne. The city’s population was 7,000. Preceding his speech was a parade that took two hours to pass the reviewing stand between Main and Berry Streets. There were four brass bands, four fife and drum corps, and floats representing the leading manufacturers of the city. Towns like Huntington and Warsaw sent costumed marching clubs.
“Let me ask you,” Douglas said to the crowd, “why cannot this nation endure forever as our fathers made it, divided into free states and slave states, with the right on the part of each to have slavery as it chooses, and to abolish it when it chooses?” Lincoln had recently said the opposite – the nation could not exist half-slave and half-free. In the presidential election that year, Fort Wayne supported Douglas by 3,224 votes versus 2,552 for Lincoln.
Myron probably witnessed the parade and speech, but he was not a Douglas supporter. He was an abolitionist and an ardent Republican.
He also wasn’t the only parent who didn’t want his sons to enlist once the Civil War began. His oldest son, Lucius was 19 when the conflict started, and turned 20 that September. In spite of the support for Stephen Douglas and the status quo, once war was declared Allen County residents responded and men enlisted enthusiastically. Lucius was eager to join the Union Army. Myron and Jane were adamantly opposed. A biographical profile published shortly after Lucius’ death said he ran away from college “several times” to try to join, but somehow was thwarted by his father.
In June 1862 Antioch College announced the news that it was forced to close. It wasn’t just that so many students were leaving to join the war effort. The college had struggled financially for some years and failed to secure an endowment. The war exacerbated its problems. “It has become a matter of sheer necessity to close the College until the return of peace and prosperity renders it possible to raise an endowment fund,” a newspaper article stated.
Lucius enlisted as a corporal in the Indiana 12th Infantry, Company K on August 21, 1862 for a three-year commitment. His cousin, James Bird, the son of Ochmig Bird and Ann Suttenfield, enlisted with him. They left the same day for Kentucky and nine days later fought in the Battle of Richmond, where most of the regiment was captured. The Battle of Richmond was one of the most complete Confederate victories of the war. Two hundred six men were killed, 844 were wounded, and 4,303 were captured. The commander of the 12th, Colonel William Link, was wounded and died three weeks later as a result of his injuries. Another of the wounded was Lucius, who was shot through the leg. It was quite an introduction to battle. Lucius was hospitalized – and given the bullet removed from his leg, which he kept all his life. He returned to his regiment as soon as he recovered.
For the next three years, his parents must have worried greatly as he fought in battle after battle. In a much more serious battle wound, he was blasted with a ball through his face, losing part of his jaw and five teeth. He was given a lengthy furlough to recover at home, then returned to his unit. He was captured and held as a Confederate prisoner of war including five months in the notorious Andersonville, Georgia prison camp, and at others, where his survival was essentially a miracle. On 1 Oct 1864 the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette shared the contents of a letter received by a local man from J.W. Ogden of the 12th Indiana Infantry. “During General Sherman’s raid in that vicinity, where about 30,000 of our men are confined as prisoners by Gen. Hood, all officers were hurried off to Charleston, under pretense of speedy exchange. Sergeant L.T. Barbour and some others scaled the walls and joined the crowd to be exchanged.”
At the time the letter was written, Lucius’ cousin James O. Bird was left behind the walls of the prison, but it was hoped he would be exchanged the next day. The stories of the conditions at Andersonville and a series of photos of prisoners who looked like walking skeletons (or what we now describe as “looking like Holocaust victims”) shocked the North. In the letter, Ogden said the “fare was very poor and limited – nothing to eat but cornbread and bacon,” and that “our men who have been imprisoned there a long time are in suffering condition, almost without clothing, and many sick with scurvy and other diseases.”
Jane and her sister Ann could take some small comfort in knowing their sons had been together throughout the war, but it was small comfort indeed. Lucius was only 72 pounds when he got out of Andersonville. He returned from his Civil War service so weakened he could barely walk, and needed to be nursed back to health. Sadly, sometime after his return, James began exhibiting concerning behavior and was eventually found to be insane. He was later committed to the Eastern Indiana Hospital For the Insane where he spent the rest of his life.
Family Troubles
For at least a decade after the war, it seems that Myron sometimes couldn’t get a break. He spent considerable energy trying to launch his children into successful, independent adulthood, with frequent setbacks. There were major challenges with Jane’s health. She went blind, and seemed to be in a frail state. There were ongoing concerns over their invalid daughter Ella. In January 1866, fire broke out on the upper floor of a dry goods store in Lagro, a little canal town in Wabash County. The proprietor of the store was Myron’s brother-in-law, Richard Adams, but the building belonged to Myron. (Richard was married to his sister Nancy Barber Adams.) The fire spread to four other buildings, and only by “almost superhuman” efforts of town citizens was the entire town spared from total destruction. The five buildings were a total loss. Myron had insured his building and the insurance was promptly paid out, but it was still a major issue to deal with.
Of course regardless of one’s problems, the bills must still be paid, and life continues. A busy man, Myron operated his business, served as president of the board of trustees at his church, Second Presbyterian, and was active in the temperance cause. He represented Allen County on the executive committee of the Northeast Temperance Alliance and served in various capacities in the Independent Order of Good Templars, a fraternal society dedicated to temperance. There were several small items in the newspaper about his activities. In 1867 he was appointed to a committee to make a presentation at the Allen County Medical Association opposing alcohol prescriptions, a common practice. He and Lida attended Good Templar events together, and in January 1868 they were both appointed to committees at the district convention. On the first of July 1868 he treated the Summit City Lodge No. 14 to ice cream.
Temperance was a huge issue in the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century, and for good reason. By 1830, Americans drank in staggering amounts – three times as much as they do today. Imagine a gallon and a half of 80-proof liquor per person per month in each household to get some sense of the quantity. Women were almost totally dependent on men for their support, and poverty and unemployment often accompanied alcoholism. Alcohol was regarded as the enemy of Home and Family. We can look at the opioid crisis in our own times to get some sense of the destruction and sorrow Victorians experienced, and the Barbours were not immune.
Lucius returned from the war a shell of himself, afflicted in more ways than physical. Physical recovery, in fact, was the easy part. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t a diagnosis then, but it seems highly likely that he suffered from it. Lucius turned to alcohol to the despair of his family. But before the problem was obvious to everyone, in fact, when Lucius was still serving in the army, his sisters “conspired” to introduce a classmate from Ohio Female College to Lucius – and the two got engaged.
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Loring was from Rising Sun, a small southern Indiana town on the banks of the Ohio River about thirty miles from Cincinnati. Myron and Jane must have been pleased with this development. Lizzie’s parents were New Englanders and staunch Presbyterians. Her father was a well-to-do farmer. And of course, the girls were already friends of Lizzie’s. Lizzie and Lucius married in May 1866 at her parents’ home in Rising Sun.
Myron and Jane's oldest daughter Sylvia, known to the family as Sibbie, married Henry Harrison Lipes six months earlier in November 1865. His parents were Virginians who moved to Allen County when he was small. His father was a successful farmer and served as an Allen County commissioner. Sibbie was studying at the Boston Conservatory of Music when they married. Henry avoided service in the war, and now, with the return of the soldiers, had just launched a commercial business college in Fort Wayne with financial backing from his father. Curiously, Henry and Sibbie married in Boston, far from family and friends. Their first child, Clara, was born in July 1866. In June 1867 Lucius and Lizzie’s daughter Jeanette, known as Nettie, was born. More grandchildren followed in quick succession for Myron and Jane.
Henry worked hard and did many things to promote his college. There was a rising market for white-collar clerical work, and the business college prepared young adults for it. But to make a go of a college one must continually attract paying students. Myron C. and Lida both attended the college; so did cousin James Bird before his mental collapse. But the college floundered. Late in 1868 Henry sent a letter to the newspaper addressing rumors that he planned to flee the city for Toledo after accepting student tuition.
Then came a devastating headline in the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 4 Jan 1869. “Is It Swindle?” Followed by:
The students of Lipes’ Commercial College were very much astonished to hear that the college was closed. It seems they were dismissed Thursday night, with the understanding that they would assemble again this morning; but during Friday and Saturday, Mr. Lipes, who had come down to the city, removed all his property and departed, leaving word that the College was closed. The students, many of them poor country lads, had been required to pay their tuition in advance and are cheated out of a portion. Mr. Lipes has left a large number of heavy debts behind him, with no security for their payment. All of the property which remains is held on a mortgage and cannot be levied on. There is something very wrong in this matter and one thing is certain: his creditors believe him a swindler.
Two days later, Myron wrote a letter vigorously defending his son-in-law. It too was published in the paper. He asked to address the question of character that was raised by the “Is it a swindle?” headline. For nearly five years, Myron F. Barbour said, Henry had poured his every effort into the college.
Every dollar received for tuition fees, and a handsome patrimony given by his father has been expended to sustain the school, using barely enough to sustain himself and family during the time.
Two years ago, after paying about one thousand dollars to relieve the concerns from debt, I advised him to give up the effort, but he thought by redoubling his efforts and lessening his expenses, he might succeed. The result has shown that he was mistaken, and that after five years of incessant toil, he is compelled to give up the enterprise and now goes to Toledo without a dollar.
Until last Friday Mr. Lipes had no thought of giving up this college, and only when every source of help had been exhausted did he reluctantly yield to the unavoidable necessity of stopping the school.
I have no apology to offer for Mr. Lipes. He has failed. Yet I believe if we have ever had within our midst an honest, upright, moral Christian gentleman, toiling faithfully amid discouragement, patiently suffering disappointments, humbly determined to win the success which his skill and industry entitle him, Mr. Lipes may claim that distinction.
H.H. Lipes is not the first Fort Wayne man who failed to accomplish his undertakings, and I fear he will not be the last….
One word more: Every dollar of Mr. Lipes indebtedness will be paid just as soon as he can do it.
Myron expressed the hope that creditors would be patient with Henry, and stated his confidence that Henry would be successful in Toledo as he was not in Fort Wayne. Later in the month, Henry wrote the editor again, with a somewhat self-righteous letter. He said he’d been called a swindler, a thief, and “everything degrading and disreputable.” He said he acted in good faith, labored unceasingly, and did not know he would have to close the college abruptly. It wasn’t something calculated. He invited all those who had paid for coursework to come to Toledo to take classes from him - something a poor country boy could hardly attempt, as he surely knew. Yet he made it a solution to those who pre-paid tuition. He hadn't reneged on their coursework; they could simply come to Toledo and take the classes. He promised to pay his other creditors as soon as he was able. He ended saying indignantly, “Though I have been falsely charged with many bad acts, I have a clear conscience, and thank God that I am the accused and not the accuser.”
Henry had been fortunate in having his father’s money to launch the college in the first place, and equally fortunate to have a father-in-law who could bail him out to the tune of $1,000, more than most people made in a year. (Unskilled laborers typically made $400 a year at this time. A white-collar clerical worker, which were men at that time, were typically paid from $600 to $1,400.)
Myron assisted his own sons, Lucius and Myron C. as well, attempting to launch them in white-collar professions. He at first employed Lucius as a lightning rod salesman. He set Myron C. up as a dentist in their home, a short-lived endeavor. Records are lacking as to precisely what each son was doing each year and the ways in which Myron helped them, but an indication from an 1870 letter from Myron to Lucius talks about a drugstore he sold to Lucius. It’s likely that he set Lucius up in the business. His letter indicates the deep concern over Lucius’ drinking problem, and frankly, the limited understanding people had of alcoholism. It was dated May 31st. (Letters are transcribed with their original errors.)
My dear son,
I do not know how to begin this letter, I had hoped and trusted that I would never be called upon to write it. I had hoped and trusted that your solemn, written promise would be faithfully and truly kept, that the written promise Will not drink or taste intoxicating liquor, wine, beer nor cider would have been fully observed. Such seems not to be the fact and you perhaps can somewhat imagine my feelings when I see my firstborn son plunging headlong negligent into that stream which ends only on perdition. Lucius, are you determined to ruin yourself, to bring disgrace and sorrow upon your parents and family, to add the last, the most bitter drop to the cup which your poor Mother in her blindness, in all her afflictions, seems destined to drink? Are you determined to drive from your bosom her who for your sake has given up Father, Mother, home? Are you determined to drive from you the wife whom you have sworn to love, cherish and protect, and the dear little children committed to your care? The mother to end her days in hopeless mourning and the children to meet the cold charity usually bestowed upon a drunkard’s child? Lucius, if you have no regard for the sorrow and suffering of the Mother who bare you, nor for the anguish and shame of the Father who perhaps not wisely but to the best of his ability has labored for your good, if you have no love for her who, as a wife, loves you devotedly, of the dear little ones have no place in your affections, if you are willing to pull down your family altar, make of your home a pandemonium, send your wife and children into exile and so far as is in your power bring blight and shame and destruction upon all, yet for your own sake my son, I beg you to stop in that dreadful course which is carrying you to a drunkard’s grave and a drunkard’s doom.
I have done for you all I can do. I have done all that it is necessary to do. With all the advantages of a good education, good ability, kind friends around you [s–?] it is your own willful, wicked choice and your ruin will only rest upon your own self. Now what course will you take, the middle course is not for you, you will either be all right or all wrong.
I confess that I have some misgivings of conscience in permitting you to remain in the Drug Store where above all other places a cool careful cautious brain should alone dispense the agents of life or death into many families. I don’t know what to do because I don’t know you will do. I have waited several days hoping you would get sober so that we might decide. I don’t mean that I have waited for you to become semi-conscious or even conscious but to wait until the effect of alcohol should have passed from your brain. If that time has come then I will make to you this statement. You must give up dancing, billiards and the use of or taste of anything and everything that will intoxicate. Now this you must do or I must do another thing and that is to close the Store. Other things you ought to do. You ought not to chew or smoke or hunt — you ought to spend at home all your spare time, working in your garden or helping your feeble wife whose failing health needs your care and assistance in the rearing [of] the children. If you fail of living a happy cheerful prosperous life it will be your fault.
There is just two courses one of which you will pursue, either do right and be happy or perish in doing wrong. You will receive this today. Now I want you to write me tomorrow what you will do. My conscious compels me and I know I am right to require a positive assurance that you will totally abstain from dancing, billiards, the use of everything that will intoxicate or I want you to give up the store and place me as near as you can to where I was before I sold to you. I entreat you my son, do what is right. You well know how to do it. If you will not, then deal fairly with me, let me know your determination. There is no middle ground with you. I had as soon see you drink a pint as a spoonful for in the end they both produce the same result.
Lucius I don’t know but prosperity is too much for you but it did seem to me that you had had enough of trouble and had a sufficient view of the ruin whiskey always brings that you would escape it. May God in his great mercy influence you to do right my dear, dear son, Lucius T. Barbour.
Affectionately,
M.F. Barbour
Lizzie saved this letter and a few others which were kept in a plush photo album so beloved by Victorians. It would be an understatement to say that 1870 was not a good year for the Barbours, and the deep worry over Lucius was only part of it.
The summer of 1870 Henry was still trying to make a go of things at his commercial business college in Toledo. With whatever ailment Jane was suffering from, and her blindness, Myron rented out their home at 98 East Berry Street (nine rooms, good cellar, a well with excellent water, fine fruit trees and barn, with 100 feet of frontage). They moved into Hanna House, the city’s finest boarding house, where she would not have to worry about running a household. Although he was only 59, Myron identified himself as a retired merchant on the 1870 census, with property worth $20,000 and a personal estate of $5,000.
Jane suffered two falls and was bedridden in critical condition when Ella suddenly died at age 22. An invalid all her life, her death was still considered unexpected. Of course the nature of her illness can not be diagnosed now, but in the one surviving picture found of her she looks cyanotic. Could it have been a heart condition?
Three weeks later, after a sickness of only two days, “no previous warning,” Clara Lipes, the oldest grandchild, died suddenly. She had just turned four. She was “unusually beautiful and mature for her age – the very picture of health, and the solace and pride of the family circle,” a newspaper correspondent - possibly a family member - wrote. The cause of death was attributed to a frequent Victorian malady, congestion of the brain. Her body was brought to Myron and Jane’s residence for the funeral, and she was buried at Lindenwood Cemetery. “For such sorrow there is no consolation,” the newspaper account said, except for Christian faith; the belief they would be reunited with Clara again.
Back-to-back deaths, Jane’s serious health problems, the deeply concerning issues with Lucius, the troubles of Henry, and who knows what was going on with Myron C. – it must have seemed like everything rained down upon the family at once. The year 1871 brought several changes.
In December 1870 Lizzie and Lucius had a third child, Frank. Lizzie left Lucius when she was pregnant, and returned to her now-widowed mother’s elegant brick home. Lucius followed her there for a time, whether for a brief visit or to try to mend their relationship. Whichever was the case, he returned to northern Indiana. At least at first, Myron generously assisted in supporting Lizzie and little Nettie, Myron Loring and Frank.
Henry finally had to admit defeat with his commercial college. He and Sibbie moved to Chicago where he enrolled in the Baptist Theological Seminary at what is now known as the Old University of Chicago. He was in debt from his business venture, and his tuition and living expenses for the two years he was in school was probably paid for by his father-in-law. Myron also sent Lida to Chicago to study music.
Myron C. married a girl named Frankie Gifford. She was another school friend of Lida’s.
Myron sent this letter to Lizzie in November 1871:
Dear Lizzie,
I received by express yesterday Lucius’ overcoat which I will send to him as he is now in Pierceton.
The weather is getting quite cold here and thinking that the same has reached the Ohio River I have been only just now send you a draft on the New York for One Hundred Dollars, for which sign receipt to return. We are all quite well. Sibbie is in Chicago and well. Eliza is also there studying music. Tell Nettie to write to me as soon as she can. We want to see the children very much. My wife says she wants to see them so bad she doesn’t know what to do. Write to us often and let us know how you are getting along.
Affectionately,
M.F. Barbour
Since Myron didn’t offer the information, it’s not known what Lucius was doing in Pierceton, a small railroad town in Kosciusko County, just eight miles down the road from Warsaw.
In 1872 Lida married George Thompson, a Connecticut native, about whom little information has been found. They stayed in Chicago.
There was the death of another Barbour grandchild, the Lipes’ second daughter after the 1870 census but dates are unknown. Sophia L. Lipes was enumerated on the 1870 census, age one and born in Ohio. No other records about her have been located.
Henry graduated from the theological seminary in 1873. He was raised a Baptist, joined Second Presbyterian Church after marrying Sibbie, then graduated from a Baptist theological school. However, he became a Presbyterian minister after his graduation and would remain one for the rest of his life. Henry and Sibbie would live a mostly itinerant existence, moving from small-town parsonage to small-town parsonage. Their first posting was in Kendallville, Indiana in Noble County, just twenty-seven miles from Fort Wayne.
Myron C.’s marriage to Frankie Gifford was short-lived, ending in divorce. In September 1873 he remarried to Agnes Banta Stoler, a young widow from Pierceton. Did he meet Agnes while visiting Lucius there? Or was he living in Pierceton first and that was a reason Lucius was in Pierceton? As for Lucius, he’d moved on. He relocated to Rochester, New York. Why there specifically is unknown, but a close friend, Florence Mahon Seymour lived in Rochester and her brother, another good friend of Lucius’, lived nineteen miles away in Brockport. Lucius wrote Lizzie a letter from Rochester 7 December 1873, and it was not a letter that would inspire confidence in a young wife and mother, if she hoped for a reconciliation.
My Dear Lizzie,
On my return to Florence’s house she informed me and also let me read a letter from you in which it seems that you have not received my letter, written in this house on this size paper, and with the same pen (at least the same holder) and ink on Sunday morning, Nov. 3, 1873. I cannot account for your not receiving it as I mailed it the following Monday afternoon in the mail box at the corner of Plymouth Ave. and Clinton Street. The letter was quite a long one written closely over eight pages of this size paper. I am sorry you did not get it as it has caused much unpleasantness on both sides, mine thinking you had received and did not care to answer. Florence knows that I wrote and also knows the contents of it as I read it to her. I was occupied from long before Florence went to church until her return and finished and read to her as soon as she had time to hear it. Again, I am sorry that you did not get it, as it were a far better expression than you will get today from me. I suppose you were informed of me being out of employ and it has been impossible for me to get anything to do since although I have tried every day and have been on every street in this city as well as the country in hopes of getting something to do, but it is of no avail, becoming discouraged and faint I took a glass of beer which called for something stronger and ere I was aware felt the effects upon my brain which for so long a time had not felt its effects. Knowing what the consequences would be, if I continued I immediately went to a friend of mine in the country, to brace up. While there I read and reread your letters which I had in my pocket, one sentence attracted my attention, viz. That “I relieve [?] on my own strength you was afraid I stood on slippery ground” I thought I would try and borrow strength from on high on taking up the bible I found great consolation and by asking my heavenly father for help from on high I am once more safe. Now my Darling, don’t think that I have had a regular spree and have imbibed to such an extent that I lost my senses and had no control of myself, had I not known myself an the consequence of I reminisce where it was
I might have become intoxicated. Now Darling I have made a full Statement. I do not know what I will get to do now nor do I know whether I will remain in the City longer than this week if I do not I will probably go to Buffalo. A [a–?] I not came to Florence’s house
I would not have known that you had not received my last letter and consequently would not have the pleasure of writing today.
I will write you again as soon as I get settled or I will inform you of my whereabouts should I leave here. I see the photograph you sent Florence of the children, would recognize Nettie and Mina but never would think it a likeness of little “Frank.” Keep the dear ones for me and also accept a warm and loving kiss from
Lucius
p.s. I wrote each of the children when I wrote you last.
Just three days later, Alderman Mahon, known as Addie, sat down and wrote Myron a well-meaning letter. Addie was the brother of Florence who was mentioned in Lucius’ letter. The siblings were the children of Arch and Mahala Mahon. Arch Mahon and his brothers came from New York state to seek their fortunes in Huntington County, Indiana in 1838. Arch was the same age as Myron, arrived in Indiana three years after him and may have been from the same part of New York as Myron. The Mahon brothers formed the Wabash & Erie Packet Boat Company and partnered with a few prominent Fort Wayne men in the venture. Then they operated canal boats from Fort Wayne to Huntington. Arch and his brother Samuel bought land along the Wabash River and started the town Mahon. Myron bought plots of land from them, and in other parts of Huntington County. When Arch Mahon died, Myron was named executor of his estate. Arch’s wife Mahala died three years later and Myron was also named executor of her estate.
Other than those facts, the nature of their relationship is unknown. Addie and Florence were 12 and 14 when their mother died. Did the Barbours take them in? Florence and Myron C. were the same age; they were close to Lucius and Sibbie’s ages. Did the Mahons kids go to school with the Barbour kids? Whatever the details are, letters show they were very close. Addie’s letter follows:
Mahon & Barney General Insurance Agents
A.D. Mahon, Agent
Brockport, New York Dec. 10, 1873
Mr. M.F. Barbour, Esq., Fort Wayne
Dear Friend,
Lucius is now with me and says he will stay with [me] six months as I have asked him to do. I went to Rochester Monday last and found him; it was with a good deal of persuasion that he consented to come to my home. I told him I certainly thought if he could drop off drink for one six months the second would not be one half as hard, and I was quite positive if he would stay with me for six months. I did not think he would wasn’t it quite as bad as he thinks he does some time and thanks be to him he has consented to do so, He says “anything Addie if I can get rid of this terrible thing.”
Now Mr. B. – I propose to try just this out and [--ment?]. That is, I will fix up a room for him that will be as pleasant as possible for him at [my] house. I am, and will be for the next six or eight months in the county looking after my business. I shall take him with me at all times. I shall show him by demonstration what we all feel for him, and he will be seeing something new all the time and his mind will not stray to the terrible cup. I think I can keep him straight. It might be well in a few months for Jane, or his wife or both to make him a visit and it will still be a more binding encouragement to him. I think it will have a great effect upon [him]. I know [you and] Jane are in great despair of him. I read your letter to [F…k? Florence?] on Monday last when I was down there. Now Mr. B. – try and revive a little more hope. We may accomplish this reform yet. He has never had me to deal with him yet.
The trouble has been with him has been that he will go the city – which is entirely the worst place he could go and there is more or less excitement, Theaters and from there to the salons most likely. Now I shall not permit [him] to even go to the city unless I accompany him. If he is with me I know he will not get - no sir, not one drop. I shall as I said before keep him away from all of that kind of excitement. But make as much for him at home and possibly can. Mary will be at home this winter and she can take care of him at the house and keep him entertained. I have promised him everything that [our] little Family can offer shall at all times be at his hands.
Now please write him some encouragement. Don’t say not one word that would have a tendency to cut his feelings for as soon as he receives anything of that nature it makes him feel blue and then he wants something to drown his feelings. I guard against it all I can.
Mr. B., please don’t take any exception to this letter. I feel now if I could only be the means of bringing him over this terrible, terrible stream, and at last he might unite again with not only his Parents but that dear little family of his. Why Mr. Barbour, I should feel that I had done my work here, therefore with the Lord’s assistance I hope I say I – we hope to place ourselves in possession of this feeling if you can.
We have another little daughter about 4 weeks old – nice girl too. Family are doing well, in fact we are all well.
Love to all and believe me as ever
Yours,
A.D. Mahon
The next letter that was carefully saved in Lizzie’s collection was written to her from Lucius, who wrote from Pierceton. Maybe he was staying with Myron C. and Agnes.
April 20, 1874
My Dear Lizzie,
Sometime last February I wrote you that I must see you and not be surprised if you see me before long. I waited for a reply but did not receive one, on the 25th of February left for Brockport, NY and arrived at Cincinnati on the first of March, having visited several places and friends on the way. After reaching Cincinnati one night shortly after my arrival I wrote you a good, kind, loving and long letter. After reading it over I concluded not to send it but first head [illegible]. Pa see I had written him to send me your letter. He did so; after reading it over I thought perhaps it better for me not to send what I had written. I destroyed it. After hearing from home and believing that [? ?] was not desirable or in other and plainer words that you did not want to see me. I considered not to write you but I could not resist the desire of seeing the children (incog) at a distance. So I took the cars for Aurora. I got transportation and left the buggy at the south gate and walked to your house keeping on to the river after having watched our little ones at play for 10 or 15 minutes. I tell you Lizzie, it was all I could do to resist speaking or calling them to me but I did. I was in hope of getting a glimpse of you but I failed. I was surprised to see how the children have grown and all looking so well. Oh my dear wife, I am in hopes [line illegible] belongs to you. A heart full of love, a kind and affectionate father and loving husband, I am in hopes my dear that I can be a changed man, that we have overcome my great enemy alcohol. I’m expecting to go from here to Kendallville to see Sibbie and from there to Chicago where I would be glad to hear from you. God bless you my dear wife. Remember me in your prayers. Love to all. Direct to Chicago.
Yours affectionately,
Lucius
Ma says Addie Mahon got a letter from you for [?] after I left. I told him to [ink blot makes the rest of the sentence illegible.]
By today’s standards, it seems a little disturbing that Lucius would take a train unannounced all the way to Aurora (the nearest train station) then hire a liveryman to take him to Rising Sun, about a nine-mile drive, to sneak around stealing a glimpse of his children and saying he hoped to spot his wife. Was it calculated to make Lizzie feel watched? If so, why?
He followed with this letter:
Kendallville, Ind.
June 3, 1874
My Dear Lizzie,
Something over a month ago I wrote you from Pierceton. Pa received a letter from you and gave it to me to read. I do so and from the contents supposed that a few lines from me would be acceptable, I sat down and wrote you, but as yet have not heard a word from you. I believe I did write you to [?] me at Chicago but as I see that my stay here would be somewhat longer than I anticipated I wrote to Pa to forward any letters that might beat the post office for me, but none came. Feeling in a terrible mood tonight I thought I must do something to try to drive away these horrid feelings. I don’t know when I felt worse than tonight. Night after night these horrid memories of a misspent life come over me like blackness of a thunder cloud. If there ever was an unhappy mortal, it’s me. The sufferings of Andersonville, Florence and Charleston, S.C. are not to be compared to the sufferings of this poor heart, made more unendurable than the thought that there is no one to blame but myself.
While confined in the different prison pens of the South I had the peace of conscious knowing that all of my bodily suffering were in defense of the “Glorious Old Flag,” with fond remembrance that I had done my duty and was not ashamed to have my “military record” paraded before any of my friends.
But the thoughts of my record as a Civilian, as a Husband and Father, Oh! Would to God I could erase them from my mind, but no! That is an impossibility, for at midnight’s hour when all alone they rise before me like hideous objects. How many sleepless nights have I [?] of our long separation with these phantoms before my eyes, and then after hours of courting the “arms of morpheus” and after some recourse to some anodyne I have beheld them in my dreams. When I look over the suffering that I have gone through I wonder that I am alive were I prepared to leave this world for the next hour gladly would I do it. But it seems the longer I live the further I get from the paths of the righteous. If there is such a thing as a person being just redemption I think I am, I would do anything to be a good christian but I can’t, believing that the time has come when some understanding should be had between us it is with tender feelings I make known the following:
Nearly three (3) years have elapsed since I left R.S. [Rising Sun, Indiana]. When I left I thought we would never again live as man and wife. I have written you before that if you desire a divorce I would do anything in my power to assist you in getting it. I would take no steps in opposition to your wishes and that you would have it as you wished. You wrote me a good, kind, loving letter saying such was not your wish, but that “when I had reformed, was in business and could support you and the children, as I should, you would gladly come to me and forget the past.”
Months have elapsed since you wrote the above quotations, the old adage, “A constant dropping will make a stone,” may in our case be very [?]. I know that I have allowed months to go by without answering letters, [being? Brimming?] full of love and advice, that I have time and time again allowed the demon alcohol to overcome my good resolutions and and fall in the estimations of friends and kindred. As I said before, months have elapsed before you wrote me, that all you wished was a reform, etc. How is it now, does your silence says the constant dropping of tears from my eyes have fell heavily upon my heart and has worn deep inroads which can never be effaced by your presence or remembrance? To hear you say, Yes! Such is the case? Oh! God thou who has [?] the universe, forbid that such is the case. But if such is the case relieve an anxious heart, let one know everything and I’ll govern myself accordingly. You can let me know in two ways either by a few lines or by your silence.
Since writing the foregoing, busy thoughts took [?] and flew with great velocity from things of the past to things of the future. As I sit reclining in the armchair at the table where I write, I tried to look into the future. I am not Prophet enough to foretell future events, but something seemed to say, Touch not, Taste not, Handle not the vile Cup and a glorious future awaits you. Sometimes I think the Lord has spared my life for some great end, but why can it be, God only knows. Perhaps I may yet be one of “God’s” children and in a measure atone for the past. I leave it in his hands to do with me what he thinks best. I think I have seen enough suffering and hope that happiness awaits.
Sibbie and family are well. She has three very interesting children. Little Harry is so sweet, one of the most affectionate children I ever saw, indeed it is excepting Little Nettie (Oh what would I give to see her). Ask him whose boy he is he quickly answers Uncle. He is my bedfellow and thinks a great [?] of uncle. Sibbie has a very nice horse and buggy, which helps wile away this weary life. Mr. Lipes is at Auburn attending the Association. He is succeeding quite well in the pulpit. Now Lizzie, good night. I would like to hear from you but if not agreeable write for Little Net and let her dictate. Kiss the dear ones for me. With much love
Affectionately yours,
Lucius
Just days later, he was confessing that his feelings for her had waned. He’d already broached the subject of divorce, and it seems he was ready for their “limbo” relationship to be over.
June 29, 1874
My Dear Lizzie,
Your letter of the 14th and 16th just came in due time, or at least I found them awaiting my return from Churubusco where I went on the 18th inst., I was glad to hear from you but regret to learn that you have not been well. Oh! What would I give to see you, my loved ones to-day Sad fate it is more than I can bear the thoughts that I’m never to meet you and call you by the endearing title – wife – but if such must be the case I’ll try to deaden this feeling, look to the future, believing that some time I may yet be happy and be of some use to myself and friends. Hours I wish I could go back to our happy days at Larwill. Lizzie, we were happy then, loving and loved in return with me the love I once bore you is somewhat dampened, grown cold, separation has caused it. I've no doubt your feelings have also changed, who could blame you? Not I. I am candid with you, Lizzie, as regards my feelings but still a constant wish to see you and the little ones is uppermost in my mind. I suppose Nettie would not want to be called a little one, would she? How did she entertain her company on her birthday
Lizzie would live out a long life as a “straw widow.” Divorce carried a heavy stigma in the Victorian era and it was not something she sought. She would always be known as Mrs. Barbour and report herself as widowed on the census, something most divorce and separated women did in her lifetime.
Empty Nest-ish
Lacking more family letters, there are limited details about the comings and goings of the family. In 1877 the Lipes were stricken again by the death of another child, their 16-month old son Jesse. They were visiting friends in Angola, Indiana for a weekend. At 5 p.m. Saturday he was suddenly stricken with “congestion of the brain,” and died at 3 p.m. the next day. Like little Clara, he was taken to Fort Wayne where his funeral was held at Second Presbyterian Church. Funerals were almost always at home – but Myron and Jane were living in Chicago.
There were a few notices in the Fort Wayne Sentinel saying, “M.F. Barbour, of Chicago, is in the city.” Myron bought and sold property there. Lida and her husband had moved to Englewood, then a relatively new community experiencing a middle-class housing boom. On the 1880 census, for occupation, “none” was written for her husband George. They had a boarder living with them, and a domestic servant. Later, in his will, Myron wrote that he had helped Lida more than any of his other children. That is really saying something. Did he support her and her family for years? It is possible.
After two or three years in Chicago, Myron and Jane returned to Fort Wayne. Jane’s brother-in-law, Ochmig Bird, died in 1878 and her sister, Ochmig’s wife Ann, died in 1879. Jane and Ann’s mother Laura Suttenfield had lived with the Birds for decades. Now she came to live with the Barbours, who cared for her until her death in 1886 at age 91. An 1882 article said that Myron enjoyed taking his mother-in-law to visit places where she could contrast the way northern Indiana had been when she arrived in 1814 as a young wife. He took her to Pierceton, maybe on a visit to Myron C. and Agnes, where “she had an opportunity to express her astonishment at the improvements made, and where she could have a good view of the passing trains on the Pittsburg road.” The article reported that she was almost dumbfounded at the “great trains that were almost constantly in sight.” (The odd thing about that is that heavy train traffic was a constant in Fort Wayne - not something she had never seen before.)
In 1880, Myron and Jane had nine surviving grandchildren. They were Sibbie’s four: Stella, Harry, Myron David and Robert, ranging in age from 10 to newborn; Lucius’ three: Nettie, Myron Loring and Frank, who ranged from 13 to 10; Myron C.’s son Clyde, age 6, and Lida’s daughter Hattie, age 6. Henry and Sibbie were living in Fort Wayne, which must have been a special source of happiness to Jane.
In contrast, there was a development that Myron and Jane could not have been happy about. Lucius was living with a young mother of three named Alice Hatfield Hoover in Marshall County, where he was farming. Alice left her husband for Lucius. She was seventeen years younger than Lucius and her children were 6, 4 and 2. Interestingly, Lucius was identified as single and Alice as widowed. Alice’s husband still lived in the same township, but it was common for divorced or separated women to tell enumerators that they were widowed.
In 1881 there was a tragedy at the Lipes home when Sibbie told Mary Shelvey, her maid, to draw water from their backyard cistern to start the laundry. When Mary didn’t return, Sibbie went out back to investigate and found the poor young woman in the cistern. Sibbie called for help, of course, and Mary’s body was pulled from the water. Although attempts were made to revive her, she had drowned. Mary was only 20, and an orphan who had been in domestic service for years. Her body was laid out in her room in the Lipes house. A few months later they moved to a new church in Portland in Jay County. From there they would move to Champaign, Illinois, and in 1882 on to a series of small towns in New York.
In 1881 Myron was 70. People in their late fifties were described in the newspaper as “aged” in this era. He had described himself as retired on the 1870 census, but he had never really retired from his real estate business. There were periodic notes on real estate transfers involving Myron. One example was he and Jane sold a property in Marshall for $700 in 1882 and bought a $400 property there. In 1883 he sold the property where his house on Washington Street once stood.
He stayed active in temperance causes and Republican politics, attending county, state and national conventions and being elected to leadership positions for both. He gave talks on prohibition and presented a gift of portraits of James G. Blaine and John Logan, candidates for president and vice president in 1884, to the Young Men’s Republican Club. James Blaine visited Fort Wayne and Myron was appointed to the reception committee to welcome the “Plumed Knight,” as he was nicknamed.
Women’s Suffrage
He also took on a new cause – women’s suffrage. It’s possible that he long supported women’s right to vote; clearly he was a progressive in a conservative town. But Myron’s support was public in an 1884 article in the ever-acerbic Fort Wayne Sentinel. The Sentinel editor asked, “What necessity is there for women’s suffrage?” He answered his question by saying there was none. Women belonged in their “present and proper sphere” - at home, protected, sheltered from the dog-eat-dog world of men with their crass jokes and libidinous nature. Why would anyone want to subject pure, delicate women to such an environment? Men had managed for centuries to provide good governance, to make good laws, conduct commerce and run railroads without the interference of women.
Myron had an impressive young neighbor and member of his church, David N. Foster. Foster was the exact same age as Lucius and a former newspaper editor who had written some pieces on women’s suffrage. Myron wrote the Fort Wayne Daily News suggesting they publish D.N.’s latest. The Sentinel blasted this idea with the remarks given above. D.N.’s piece was published, and the Sentinel editor responded to it in a more polite tone than he took in addressing Myron’s request, but was clear in his opposition. In no country on earth was there “such widespread contentment among the fair creatures as here,” he wrote, “where their Christian virtues are extolled and their charms cherished more zealously than at any other time in the history of the world.” His views were extremely common, in fact, predominant at the time. There was no reason to “urge women from their pure and sacred homes where they mould the character of the young and instill into the minds of children such love and nobility as will insure them kindness, care and representation in the more active areas of life.” The Sentinel was opposed to women’s suffrage because it was not right, because women didn’t want it, because they would not vote even if that right was granted, he said, and because “nature never intended that they should.” The editor continued, “The doctrine of equal suffrage means to drag women from her proper sphere into the poisonous atmosphere of public life and there shear her of the admirable delicacy, that love for home and that mildness which is sunshine to a million firesides.”
D.N. Foster believed, as most supporters of women’s suffrage did, that women’s involvement through voting would have a purifying, uplifting, moralizing impact on society. The strong Victorian beliefs in the separate sphere theory held that women were the queens of morality. Men, left to their own devices, were corrupt and uncouth. Women were virtuous. It was their responsibility to gently lead and guide men to make good decisions, and to teach children Christian values and propriety. If women could vote, they would vote for such things as prohibition and other causes of moral uplift. Myron shared D.N.’s views.
Three years later, the two attended the Indiana National Woman’s Suffrage Association convention which was held at the Methodist church just down the street from their homes. Myron and D.N. were appointed to a bipartisan committee to “look after the primary elections,” pushing for giving women the right to vote in municipal elections.
Other Activities
He also joined new organizations - the Reform League, which was a group pressing the City Council to enforce the city laws already on the books. He was elected vice president at their organizational meeting and was chosen to serve on a committee to call on the mayor to press for results.
In 1887, when the Maumee Valley Monumental Association group formed, Myron signed up. It was an old settlers group - so popular at the time all around the country. This one had the goal of pushing for the installation of historic monuments and memorials at government expense.
Jane’s name was in the paper on a regular basis too, though in the custom of the day she was always identified as Mrs. M.F. Barbour. She regularly contributed donations to ladies’ church relief programs, such as twelve chickens and eight ducks in 1884 during their Thanksgiving food drive.
A Big Move
In March 1884 he and Jane had an unexpected new granddaughter, Edna Naomi, born to Lucius - who was still married to Lizzie - and Alice. It was time to make some changes.
Since Myron arrived in Fort Wayne, he had known the Edsall family well. Two Edsall boys, William and Peter, attended Fort Wayne Collegiate Institute in Lucius’ class. The two had moved to farms outside of Coffeyville, Kansas in Montgomery County, which is in southeastern Kansas on the Oklahoma border. Their father Simon joined them there. A fresh start in Kansas….wouldn’t that be a good idea for Lucius and Alice? A place where no one would gossip and judge – because no one would know that Lucius was married to another woman…
And Myron C. — he could start over too, remake himself, maybe be somebody after all.
There was one person who could make that possible for them – and he did. Myron bought a home and farm for each son. Lucius’ was in Fawn Creek Township and Myron’s was in Parker Township. In November 1884 the first notice that Myron was visiting Lucius in Kansas appeared in the Fort Wayne newspaper.
The relocation seemed to be a good move for both sons. They were written about positively in the newspaper and both became active in Republican politics. Like their father, they were chosen as delegates to the county conventions and Lucius was elected a Fawn Creek Township trustee .
More Family Changes
Myron and Jane celebrated something relatively rare in their day – their fiftieth wedding anniversary, 15 March 1886. There was just a brief item in the paper and no big party, maybe because of Jane’s health and the fact that none of their children lived in town, or even in the state.
In November, Jane’s mother Laura died at age 91. Because of her advanced age and the fact that she’d been nicknamed the “Mother of Fort Wayne,” a result of living there since 1814, much was made of Laura’s death. Surviving besides Jane was her son, Asa Moore, who lived in town; daughter Sophia in Grayson County, Texas; son George Walker and daughter Mary Frances, both of whom lived in California. She left everything to Jane.
In September, Myron and Jane’s granddaughter Stella Lipes came to live with them. Stella turned 16 in January and had become rebellious. Her parents wanted to get her away from a certain young man named Clair Mersereau, 25. She was enrolled at Central Grammar School, the public schools finally deemed to be good enough, and stayed with them until May. Three months after her return she eloped with Clair. Jane suffered a stroke soon after Stella returned to New York and Sibbie rushed to be with her mother.
In June 1887 Lucius finally obtained a divorce from Lizzie. No-fault divorces did not exist and wouldn’t for decades. There were limited reasons to grant a divorce and judges regularly denied them. However, Lucius charged Lizzie with abandonment in a Topeka courtroom, something that nearly always resulted in divorce. He was successful. Now he was finally free to marry Alice.
Jane died 6 Oct 1887. It was widely printed that she was the first white child born in Fort Wayne, but this is probably not true. Her obituary said that she enjoyed telling stories about her girlhood in frontier Fort Wayne; it’s a loss that no one wrote down those reminiscences. Sibbie and Lida were with their mother at the end. Lucius and Myron C. found it “impossible” to be there, according to the obituary. Services were held at First Presbyterian Church, where the Barbours returned after being so involved at Second Presbyterian.
Lucius married Alice in Independence, Kansas on October 14, just days after his mother’s death.
Life After Jane
Immediately after Jane’s death, Myron seemed to fall apart. Days after she was buried he collapsed and was sick in bed. At the same time, he advertised their house at 90 East Berry Street for rent. Almost immediately after, he advertised it for sale, “low price; easy kind of terms.” New widows and widowers are cautioned not to make major life changes for about a year after their spouse dies. If that advice was given then, he wasn’t following it. On October 27 he advertised the sale of their “fine, upright” Schomacher piano; “new, sell cheap, liberal terms.” The same day, in a separate ad, he advertised five bedroom sets, a parlor set and a dining room set “very cheap.” Just after Christmas, an item in the paper said he left for Englewood, Illinois where he would spend the winter.
Early in March 1888 he traveled to Kansas to see his sons and to invest in more land. Then he returned to Fort Wayne, his equilibrium seemingly restored. At the Republican convention for Wayne Township he was elected “permanent chairman,” an honor he appreciated. He also joined the Morton Club, a Republican organization named after the late Indiana Governor Oliver Perry Morton. The competing Fort Wayne Newspapers - the Daily Gazette and the Sentinel - exchanged words about the club. The Sentinel accused it of being a “silk stocking” organization that excluded working men. The Daily Gazette accused the Sentinel of slander. The editor countered that the real “silk stocking” men, the presidents of the banks, the board members of the banks, the captains of industry and the president of the street rail company were all Democrats. The railway president's family, down to aunts, uncles and cousins “ride on free passes while the laboring man and his wife pay their fare.” The club had reached out to railroad laborers, the “working man,” to invite them to join.
In August Myron was back at Lida’s home in Englewood. He became seriously ill and telegraphed his doctor, who made a “flying visit” to Chicago to treat him. A few weeks later he was reported to be slowly convalescing. In September he returned to Kansas, staying with Lucius, who hosted a “Donation Party” for the Presbyterian minister. Myron’s little granddaughter Edna, a “sunny brunette,” charmed the crowd with song and dance -- or so said the newspaper piece (possibly written by Lucius). Myron gave generously.
Early September involved a brief visit to Fort Wayne by presidential candidate Benjamin Harrison. Myron was elected to the reception committee, which traveled to Toledo to meet the future president and accompany him to Fort Wayne. A platform was erected at the depot, the city band was scheduled to play at the courthouse, and the club arranged for young girls, ages eight to 14, to join a procession from the courthouse to the depot, each holding an American flag. The newspaper promised that a large committee was appointed to take “special charge” of the young girls and to make sure they were properly cared for.
Myron traveled making visits to all of his children. In May 1889 he went to Kansas where he stayed with his sons until July. He made another visit with his sons in 1890, after a visit with Sibbie in New York. But soon, Myron was busy elsewhere.
The New Wife
Chicago Tribune, 4 March 1891 - “The County Clerk issued permits to wed to the following couples yesterday, the parties living in Chicago where no other place of residence is given,” a routine item in the newspaper announced. The age of the bride and groom – especially the groom – stood out: 79 and 49. Of the 35 other couples who got a marriage license that day, only one other groom was over the age of 30, and he was 52-year old marrying a 46-year old bride. Someone marrying at nearly 80 attracts some attention even today, and there was some notice in the press. The Chicago Mail said that Myron “still looks young and spry. He has no use for a cane and pities anyone who needs one.”
Myron married Margaret S. McNaughton at her home in Englewood, her Presbyterian minister officiating. It’s very possible that her church, Normal Park Presbyterian, was Lida’s church, too. Maybe Myron met Margaret in church during one of his frequent visits to Lida’s home. Lida was only seven years younger than Margaret; maybe the two were friends first.
Margaret was a Scotswoman who immigrated to Canada with her family as a teenager in 1867, if not earlier. On the 1900 U.S. census she reported immigrating to the United States in 1869, although this was not true. She had three siblings close in age; John and Margery, who were older, and Alexander, who was younger. They seemed to be “late bloomers.” In 1871 they were enumerated on the Canadian census, ranging in age from 27 to 32, all single and living together with their mother. John and Margery would never marry; none of them would have children. They seemed to split up only after Mother’s death in 1872.
When Myron met Margaret she lived in Englewood with her sister Margery, who was just a year older, 49- and 50-year old spinsters. How they supported themselves and why they moved to Englewood is unknown.
Why would a 49-year old woman want to marry a 79-year old man? There are a number of reasons, starting with financial. Somehow the sisters had eked out a living, something that was very hard for women to do. But with no retirement, no social security, no children, not even nieces and nephews, old age had to be a terrifying prospect. There was also a severe stigma to being an “Old Maid.” There was widespread scorn, ridicule and pity. Women gained social status in being married. It’s not hard to imagine a gentlemanly Myron reassuring Margaret that he would make sure she was always taken care of – and her sister, too.
This is taking a practical, and cynical view. Maybe the two simply fell in love. Maybe they found pleasant companionship. For Myron, it had to be kind of exciting marrying a woman easily young enough to be his daughter. For nearly twenty years he’d lived with, and cared for, a wife who was blind and in ill health.
Mr. and Mrs. M.F. Barbour and Margory McNaughton moved into Myron’s old family home at 90 East Berry Street. There would be no more visits to see his sons and grandchildren in Kansas – or at least, none were recorded in the newspapers of either place. His children were probably not delighted that their father married someone in their generation, but the daughters seemed more accepting, or resigned. In July the newlyweds (and probably Margery) went to Canada for a six-week trip, returning in September. In early March 1892 Lucius made a stop in Fort Wayne to see his father. It was probably his first time meeting Margaret, and a newspaper said was his first time back in the city in sixteen years. Lucius was returning from a stay at the Keeley Institute in Chicago, the preeminent alcohol treatment program of its day.
The Last Years
Myron continued his involvement in real estate, in Republican politics, and with temperance. He was invited to sit on stage as an honoree when Robert Lincoln, son of the late president, came to town in 1892.
In 1894, Lida’s husband George Thompson, a man about whom so little is known, died. His body was brought to Fort Wayne where his only memorial service was held at the gravesite in Lindenwood Cemetery, an indication that he was not well-known. Myron probably provided the burial costs. Myron and Margaret made visits to Lida’s home in Chicagoland.
In January 1895 his grandson Clyde, Myron C.’s son, was arrested in Indian Territory for an armed robbery. Indiana Territory cases were adjudicated in federal court, so Clyde was sent to Fort Smith, Arkansas where his case was heard by “hanging judge” Isaac Parker. He would end up serving a three-year sentence in the penitentiary in Albany, New York.
Myron and Margaret traveled a bit (presumably with Margery), with trips to Sibbie’s in New York, to Canada, to Larwill, Indiana where Myron had several cousins. He advertised the rental of his home for the summer of 1897. Sometime that year, Lida remarried, and her choice was an interesting one. She married Alexander McNaughton – Margaret and Margery’s younger brother. Technically, she married her stepmother’s brother, so he could be considered a step-uncle.
It was his first marriage at 54. The two, along with Lida’s only child, Hattie, moved to New York City. On the 1900 census, they lived on St. Nicholas Avenue in Manhattan, right across the street from what would become St. Nicholas Park. Alexander worked as a buyer for a dry goods company; Lida and her 25-year old daughter did not work.
In March 1899 his daughter-in-law Agnes obtained a divorce from Myron C. It was his second divorce.
April found Myron and Margaret back at Sibbie’s. In June they stayed at Cliffton Springs, a New York watering hole in the Finger Lakes District. It was then a very popular destination. His 88th birthday was noted in the newspaper that September. “Mr. Barbour was at the market this morning and in apparent good health,” the Fort Wayne Sentinel reported.
Death
On November 1st 1900 Myron joined the Fremont-McKinley Club. It was really just a “Roll of Honor,” a list of men who voted for Fremont, Lincoln and McKinley. In the November 1900 presidential election, Myron voted for Republican William McKinley over William Jennings Bryan. This was predictable, of course for the longtime, ardent Republican. His youngest grandchild, born to Lucius and Alice in 1896, was even named McKinley for the presidential candidate, as his sons shared his political views.
For so many years, Myron walked most places he needed to go in the city, but bowing to old age, he was driven to the polls in a carriage. It was his last venture outside his home. By December he was reported to be critically ill. “About two years ago, Mr. Barbour suffered a severe attack of the grippe and his strength has been materially lessened since that time,” his obituary in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette said. “Otherwise, there was no disease, there being simply the gradual weakening of the vital forces.” The Fort Wayne Sentinel said, “Mr. Barbour was a man of vigorous health and unfailing energy, and not until a few years ago did the weight of years compel him to retire from active business life.
Sibbie and her husband Henry were with him at the end. The Sentinel said that the summer of 1899, when Sibbie came for a visit and found him very weak, she stayed and helped his wife care for him.
“A lifetime of reading added to the store of knowledge he acquired in his youth,” the newspaper said. “He was familiar with the best authors, took a keen interest in current events, and was well-informed to a remarkable degree. Another matter of pride to him was his beautiful penmanship, a faculty he retained almost to the end of his life.”
Myron realized his life was ebbing and communicated his funeral wishes in his last few weeks. He was buried at Lindenwood Cemetery beside Jane, and the invalid Ella, and his grandchildren Clara and Jesse, who passed away so long ago. An obelisk, which is now listing at an angle to the left, marks their plot.
The Will
When we write a will, we get to choose where to give our money and property. Competent adult children are not owed anything. But of course that doesn’t mean they don’t have some expectations, or that they will regard a will as fair.
When Myron bought farms for his sons, they were not a gift. Nor did he have any “rent to own” arrangement with them. He retained ownership, period. Both sons expended considerably energy and maybe their own cost in improving the properties and building new houses. Myron C. sold the farm in the 1890s, with the proceeds surely going to his father.
The will left everything in a trust for Margaret, to be managed by prominent attorney, former judge and Indiana State Representative Robert S. Taylor. “I direct that my said trustee shall devote the property herein bequeathed to him….to the support of my wife, Margaret S. Barbour for and during her natural life,” the will states, “and for this purpose it is my wish that he shall first use the income from the property, both real and personal; then if necessary, the principal of the personal property, and finally, if necessary, the proceeds of the real estate.”
“In the management of my said estate it is my wish that he shall at all times consult first the welfare and comfort of my wife and also consult her wishes in respect thereto…It is my expectation that it will be the wish of my said wife that her sister, Margery McNaughton, who has lived with us and been of great service to us, shall continue to live with her after my death,” Myron wrote, adding that he expected his estate to also support Margery for life.
After Margaret’s death, the estate was to cover all burial expenses. Then, what remained was to be distributed as follows: one-fifth would go to Margery, if she survived her sister. Three-tenths of the estate would go to Lucius, Alice, and their children. After Lucius and Alice died, he hoped their remaining portion would be equally divided between these grandchildren (leaving out Lucius’ first three children). Myron C. was to get two-tenths. Three-tenths was to go to Sylvia. At her death, Myron hoped what remained would be equally distributed to her children, though he did not make this a legal requirement.
“My daughter Eliza [Lida] has received from me in my lifetime a larger amount than I have given or can give to any of my other children; for which reason I make no bequest to her in this will.”
The will further spelled out distribution if his children did not outlive Margaret. If Lucius died first, Myron wanted Lucius’ portion to go to Lucius and Alice’s children. But if Myron C. died before Margaret, “the provision herein made for him shall lapse and cease,” and his share would go to his siblings. This meant that Myron was completely cutting Clyde, Myron C.’s only child, out of the will.
Myron also specified that Lucius should be permitted to occupy and use the farm in Kansas where he lived as long as he kept up with insurance and taxes. However, Margaret’s interest and support came first, and if the trustee deemed it necessary, the farm was to be rented or sold.
The will was signed in August 1899 and probated in January 1901. It was a shock to his children. It had to feel like a slap in the face to them, most of all to Lida, but surely it also held an element of fear for Lucius and Alice. The farm had been their home and livelihood for fourteen years; they probably assumed they would one day inherit it. And now – it could be sold out from under them at any time.
Aftermath
Lucius survived his father by only three years. Sadly, the Coffeyville Furniture Company records recorded his death due to alcoholism. (It was common then for furniture companies to make coffins locally and have a funeral parlor as part of their business.) Alice kept the farm going for a few years. Then in 1906 she advertised the farm for sale and moved into town. If it had sold, the proceeds would not have gone to her, and she probably did not have permission to sell. The farm was rented out, though, and she opened a boarding house in Dearing, the closest little town. It was one of the few options open to her to support herself and her young children, the youngest of whom were eight, 11 and 13 when their father died.
At the end of 1907 Robert Taylor informed Alice that he would be selling the farm. She immediately filed suit in court on behalf of herself and her children. Myron C. joined in the lawsuit contesting the will. Myron C. was struggling with his own problems as his third wife left him and filed for divorce; after that divorce was granted he married a fourth wife and she too left him. He bounced around finding various ways to make a living, and was estranged from his only child. In May and September, the Barbours lost two cases related to the will. Fair or unfair is not used as a determination of legality. The will was valid and the farms had never been theirs.
To a degree, all of Myron and Jane’s children and several of the grandchildren struggled for the rest of their lives. After his fourth divorce and his wife’s allegations about him in the local newspaper, Myron C. left Kansas and went to live with Sibbie and Henry in New York. He picked up odd jobs and day labor, and died there in 1914. His name was tacked on the bottom of Henry and Sibbie’s headstone. His son Clyde was widowed at age 36, with six children, the youngest of whom was not quite two. He raised his children alone, working as a house painter and wallpaper installer.
Alice homesteaded in Wyoming. She buried three of her sons as young adults. Of her children with Lucius, Harry was the most promising and worked as assistant postmaster in Nowata, Oklahoma. He served in World War I then resumed his career, where he was described as one of the most popular men in town. He died in 1919 at age 29 after his appendix burst. Like him, Jesse and Edna both pursued white collar jobs. Jesse lost a leg in a train accident while working as a rail clerk. He became a hotel clerk and seemed to have a downward spiral after two divorces and at least two arrests, the second of which landed him in San Quentin for a number of years. He died at age 49 a few months after getting out of prison. Mack, as McKinley was known, had a career as a rodeo champion and rodeo circuit operator in California and Oregon. In 1948, when he was 53, he had his only child, a daughter, with Hazel, a woman thirty years younger. In August 1955 he and Hazel married, but they divorced in January 1956. It was his only marriage. Edna finally found happiness, one presumes, in her fifth husband. They lived in California and worked in real estate. She died in 1968. She never had children and kept up with far-flung relatives, such as her half-siblings’ children, and her cousin Clyde’s children, and Mack’s daughter.
Perhaps with the stability Henry and Sibbie had been able to provide their children, they were the successes Myron so much would have wished his sons to be. All three of their sons became doctors. Henry died in 1928; Sibbie died at age 91 in Ballston Spa at a home for retired ministers’ widows.
Lida’s second husband seemed able to support her. He bought a house in Queens which she inherited when he died in 1920. In 1903 her only child Hattie married an old Fort Wayne connection. He was an interesting choice – Oliver Farrand, a diamond merchant in Manhattan who was 36 years older than her. Oliver’s father Nathan had served with Hattie’s great-grandfather on the Fort Wayne Board of Trustees, the governing body before Fort Wayne became an incorporated town. On the 1920 census Hattie was living with her mother in Queens; Oliver died in 1921. Sometime in the 1920s Hattie remarried to a man with a young son who she became very close to. She never had children of her own. When she was widowed a second time she moved to Tennessee where the son was living. Lida died in 1938 and Hattie in 1964.
A Final Note
In 1836 Isaac De Groff Nelson arrived in Fort Wayne from his home in Poughkeepsie, New York, a young man just like Myron, moving west to seek his fortune. He quickly became a community leader, bought the Fort Wayne Sentinel in 1840, and was elected to the Indiana General Assembly in 1851. In 1889 during a visit to Kansas City, Missouri, at age 79 he gave an address on the “Age of Wonders” he had lived through. He gave a similar, though more local speech in 1886 in Delphi, Indiana at an Old Settlers gathering.
Isaac and Myron were born only a year apart, both New Yorkers who arrived in Fort Wayne within a year of each other. Their lives spanned the nineteenth century and they witnessed truly astonishing changes. Myron would have been able to relate to everything Isaac said in his talks.
“Of course it [the “Age of Wonders”] is known by the present generation, but only in a general and vague sort of way,” he told the Kansas City crowd. “...it is only the old fellows who realize to the fullest how astonishing, how marvelous are the changes which have been wrought within the short limits of a man’s life.”
When Isaac and Myron were born, “slavery flourished” in all but four states – Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Ohio. The population of New York City was 90,000. “There wasn’t a daily newspaper in New England and there weren’t over a dozen in the whole country,” Isaac said. The prosperous mechanic or the working man of moderate circumstances would smile in 1889 if he were forced to put up with what were thought of as comforts and conveniences of seventy years before.
Isaac reminisced about how his father was the first in the county to buy a patent plow, a great improvement over the old wooden one, the new technology regarded as the “work of the devil” by his grandfather. Until he came to Fort Wayne, he had never slept on sheets that were not homemade, from flax grown on the family farm. The “soundtrack,” so to speak, of his childhood home was the constant whirr of the spinning wheel.
He remembered his first steamboat ride down the Hudson, at a zippy eight miles an hour. He was 30 before the first steamer crossed the Atlantic. Lighting in his childhood was entirely by candle, and heating and cooking were solely by way of a fireplace.
In short, Isaac said, a summary of the improvements and conveniences since his childhood reads like a story in the Arabian Nights. Isaac and Myron truly lived in a most amazing time. Each, in their own different ways, had amazing lives.
Notes:
Petitioning for Immigrants: Griswold, p. 414.
Allen County’s vote against Blacks: Griswold, p. 414.
Railroad history: Griswold, p. 409-412.
Establishing public schools: Griswold, p. 419-421.
Bitter fight over schools; mortgaging property, Myron as collector: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 15 Oct 1921.
Law declared unconstitutional: Thornbrough, p. 82. Indiana Supreme Court Judge Perkins invalidated the portion of the law that authorized incorporated cities and towns to levy taxes for schools. His position was that it violated the portion of the state constitution which made it the legislature’s duty to provide a “uniform system of common schools” that were to be tuition-free.
School history, low morale and poor discipline: Cook.
Fort Wayne Collegiate Institute - In the 1855 school register, Lucius was a second year student in the Preparatory Department. (William and Peter Edsall are in his class). Cost was $4 per term plus a fifty cent janitor’s fee for each of three 13-week terms. His uncle Richard Adams (married to Myron’s sister Nancy) served on the board of the Female College.
Myron C. expelled: Cook.
William Meyer: “Singular Things,” 1860.
Lightning rod business and cost: Mohun, p. 175.
Stephen A. Douglas visit: Griswold, p. 451-452.
Lucius running away: Duncan.
Temperance background and Americans’ drinking history: Auclair.
More than many made in a year: Laborers at this time typically made $400 a year. In 1862 clerks at the U.S. Arsenal, a white-collar job, were paid from $600 to $1,400 a year. A master carpenter - skilled labor - was paid $780.
See my article, “The Little College That Could….But Somehow Didn’t: Henry Lipes Failed Venture,” 12 Feb 2023,
Fire at Lagro: Most of the contents of Richard Adams’ dry goods store were saved by employees and citizens who dragged them into the street. However, the newspaper reported that “unprincipled wretches” stole the items.
Henry Lipes’ commercial college: Portions of this appeared in the blogpost “The Little College That Could…But Somehow Didn’t: Henry Lipes Failed Venture.” Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/.
Many thanks to Marian Dumford for the family letters.
Mahon family: Auclair. For more information on the Mahons see my article “The Mahon Brothers and the Lost Town of Mahon, Indiana,” 23 Oct 2023, Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/.
David N. Foster (1841-1934) became known as the “Father of Fort Wayne Parks.” For 25 years he served as president of the Fort Wayne City Parks Commission. In 1912 he and his brother Samuel gave two miles of land along the St. Mary’s River with 67 wooded acres for use as a park. A few years later they added a second gift of 40 acres. The city purchased additional adjoining land, and today Foster Park is one of Fort Wayne’s major parks with 255 acres and the municipal golf course. Fort Wayne residents may have noticed his name at a statue in Swinney Park, or on a rock with his and Samuel’s names at Foster Park.
D.N. was a native of New York State who came to Fort Wayne from Michigan in 1868. A first lieutenant in the Ninth New York Militia Company A, he was an editor of the Grand Rapids Saturday Evening Post, before joining his brothers in Fort Wayne. There were six of them; the oldest, Scott, started a furniture store in New York in 1859. He added a second store, then moved west to Fort Wayne and started Foster Brothers Furniture there.
D.N. used his advertising and printing experience on the newspaper to build Foster Brothers business, first turning into a full-line department store, modeled after Macy’s. Oldest brother Scott retired and the other brothers incorporated as D.N. Foster Furniture Company, wholesalers, with D.N. as president. They expanded with a store in Lafayette. By the early 1900s D.N. was president of the National Furniture Dealers Association.
He was also very active in the G.A.R. - the Grand Army of the Republic, eventually serving in nearly every local and state leadership position. He became president of the board of the Indiana State Soldiers Home in Lafayette in the 1920s.
D.N. married a very educated and accomplished wife, New York native Sarah Pyne, who was a principal in Grand Rapids before her marriage. She became a leader in women’s club work in Fort Wayne and helped organize the city’s public library.
When D.N. died at age 93 in 1934, he was still president of the Fort Wayne City Parks Commission. He had also been president of the Indiana Association of Parks and a nationally known expert on parks. His brother Samuel, with whom he made the donation for Foster Park, was a Yale graduate who came to Fort Wayne in 1879 and was an early manufacturer of ladies’ ready-to-wear garments; he served as president of Wayne Knitting Mills, a bank and an insurance company and became a trustee of Purdue University. He died in 1935 at age 83.
See my article “Lucius Barbour and the Keeley Treatment,” 29 Dec 2022, Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/.
See my article, “When My Great-Grandfather Was An Outlaw,” 31 Dec. 2022, Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/.
Robert Stewart Taylor (1838-1918) was also involved in a case involving a different branch of the family tree. He is mentioned in my article, “Lillian Russell’s Understudy? The Jessie Hanna Story,” 7 Jan 2024, Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/. Robert had lived in Fort Wayne since 1859; he was appointed prosecuting attorney in Allen County in 1868. He was a charter member of the American Bar Association, founded in 1878 and was elected president in 1899. He served two terms in the Indiana State legislature and was appointed as a judge. In 1881 he was appointed to the Mississippi River Commission by President James Garfield, which he served on for 33 years.
About the shock of Myron’s will: Before it was digitized and available on the Ancestry website, a reference librarian at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center found it for me. She scanned it over before showing it to me and said, “Oh my! I can see why his children would be very upset with this!”
Sources:
Auclair, Andrea. “Temperance Poems and Songs,” Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, 2 Jan 2024, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/2024/01/temperance-in-poems-and-songs.html
Auclair, Andrea. “The Little College That Could…But Somehow Didn’t: Henry Lipes Failed Venture,” Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, 12 Feb 2023, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-little-college-that-couldbut.html
Auclair, Andrea. “The Mahon Brothers and the Lost Town of Mahon, Indiana,” Between the Lines: Stories From Family History, 23 Oct. 2023, https://inkspotsfrompast.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-mahon-brothers-and-lost-town-of.html
Catalog and Register of the Fort Wayne Female College and the Fort Wayne Collegiate Institute For the Year Ending April 25, 1855, Cincinnati: R.P. Thompson, Printer, 1855.
Cook, Ernest W. “History of the Fort Wayne Public Schools For 100 Years,” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 16 Oct 1921, p. 3A.
Duncan, L. Wallace. History of Montgomery County, Kansas: By Its Own People, 1903.
Griswold, Bert. A Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Chicago: Robert O. Law Co., 1917.
Manual of the Second Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne: T.S. Taylor & Co., 1869.
Mather, George R. Frontier Faith - The Story of the Pioneer Congregations of Fort Wayne, Indiana 1820-1860, Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 1992.
Mohun, Arwen. “Lightning Rods and the Commodification of Risk in Nineteenth Century America,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 99, No. 5 (2009), pp. 167-180.
Nelson, Isaac De Groff. “An Address Delivered at Delphi, by Hon. I.D.G. Nelson of Fort Wayne, Indiana: On the occasion of the Thirty-first Annual Reunion of the Old Settlers of Carrol County, Indiana, August 14, 1886,” Indiana State Library Digital Collections, ndianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p1819coll6/id/83976
Seigel, Peggy.”A Passionate Minister to the West: Charles Beecher in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1844-1850,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 106, No. 4pp. 325-355.
Smart, James H. Indiana Schools and the Men Who Have Worked in Them, Cincinnati: Wilson, Hinkle & Co., 1876.
Sullivan, Gerald E. The Story of Englewood 1835-1923, Chicago: Foster & McDonald, 1924.
Thornbrough, Emma Lou. “Judge Perkins, the Indiana Supreme Court and the Civil War, Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 60, No. 1 (March 1964), pp. 79-86.
Newspapers:
“Singular Things,” Dawson’s Fort Wayne Daily Times, 4 Dec 1860, p. 3.
“Antioch College Closed,” Clinton Republican (Wilmington, Ohio), 27 June 1862, p. 1.
“Government Salaries At the United States Arsenal,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 22 Oct 1862, p. 8.
Lucius’ escape from Andersonville: Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 1 Oct 1864, p. 3.
“Fire At Lagro,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 26 Jan 1866, p. 1.
“State Insurance Company” [Lagro fire], Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 12 Feb 1866, p. 3.
“Good Templar Convention,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 20 July 1867, p. 2.
“Abstract of the Proceedings of the 16th District Convention Of the I.O.G.T.” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 17 Jan 1868, p. 4.
“Quite a Treat,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 1 July 1868, p. 4.
“Death” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 1 Sept 1870, p. 4.
Temperance Conference: Fort Wayne Daily News, 21 Sept 1883, p. 1.
“The Allen County Temperance Convention,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 12 Dec 1883, p. 5.
“Republican County Convention,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 2 March 1884, p. 6.
“Women Suffrage,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, 9 April 1884, p. 3.
“Women’s Suffrage. Pushing the Movement in Indiana – Earnest Workers on the Ground,” The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), 30 Nov 1887, p. 3.
“An Age of Wonders. The Rapid Growth of the Republic Within One Man’s Recollections,” Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri), 31 Oct 1889, p. 5.
No need of cane: Fort Wayne Sentinel, 7 March 1891, p. 8.
Move into old home: Fort Wayne Sentinel, 17 March 1891, p. 4.
“Bar Association Mourns - Allen County Attorneys Regret Death of Judge R.S. Taylor,” The Fort Wayne Sentinel, 30 June 1918, p. 6.
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