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Edward H. Chadwick
The Chadwick family to which the subject
of this sketch belongs is of English descent. The family is doubtless an old one; we find mention made in
veritable English history of a young Chadwick who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, back in the sixteenth century,
for gallant conduct in her presence. The Chadwick name has spread into every state of the Union and often we find
Chadwicks in a number of different communities in the same state. The Chadwick name is still extant in old England,
as is evidenced by the fact that only recently the writer met one of a family of five brothers and a sister, native-born
in England, who had only recently migrated to America, domiciling in the Western States, one of them Samuel
W. Chadwick, now residing and engaged in business in Madison, Indiana.
Edward H. Chadwick, of Shelbyville, Indiana,
comes in line of descent from one of the Chadwick family that settled in Massachusetts quite a while before the
Revolutionary war. There is a tradition in the Chadwick family, verified from generation to generation, that
four brothers of this Massachusetts family, comparatively young men, served a long term together in the Revolutionary
war, under the more immediate command of General Washington, and that, at the close of the war one of them settled
and married in New Jersey; another went down to Virginia, married there and reared a family; that a third brother
went over into Pennsylvania and settled in or not far from the city of Philadelphia; while the fourth brother went
back to native Massachusetts, married and reared a family there. The inherent probability of this tradition
has been many times verified to the writer of this sketch in meeting men bearing the Chadwick name who come, some
of them from a Virginia family, others from a Pennsylvania family and others from a Massachusetts family.
The New Jersey family, from whom the subject of this
sketch is descended, has not multiplied like the other families. The Revolutionary Chadwick who settled and
married in New Jersey (whose Christian name is not known to the writer) domiciled in or near the town of Elizabethtown,
now grown to be quite a city, and here he reared a family of four children, two sons and two daughters.
One of the sons, Mahlon Chadwick, became a physician,
enlisted in the United States Navy, in which he was a surgeon with the rank of captain, during the War of 1812.
On a cruise, during this war, he sickened and died., and was buried at sea. The remaining brother and
sisters came to the West in the great tides of emigration in the early years of the nineteenth century, settling
near Harrison, in Hamilton county, Ohio. Not long after coming to the West the older sister, Elizabeth, was
married to Alexander Rittenhouse. Mr. Rittenhouse and his bride then same to Shelby county, Indiana,
about the year 1822, and settled near Morristown first, but just a year or two later in the then young town of
Freeport, possibly before the platting of Freeport; and there Mr. Rittenhouse opened a mercantile business which
he continued for fully forty years. He greatly prospered, acquiring four hundred acres of fine land immediately
around the town of Freeport, and other property. About the year 1863 Alexander Rittenhouse and wife moved
to Shelbyville, buying the property now owned by Harry H. Teal, on the extreme north end of Harrison street,
on which premises these old people died, both at an advanced age, Mrs. Rittenhouse in 1870, Mr. Rittenhouse in
1871.
Their younger daughter, Mary, married Jacob
Cory, and with him settled first in Preble county, Ohio, whence, in a short time they moved to Fayette county,
Indiana, and later they moved to and settled in Wabash county, Indiana, acquiring considerable land there. Jacob
and Mary Cory reared a large family of children, among whom was Alexander Cory, of Shelbyville, who, from
1822 to 1864, figured prominently in the public and financial affairs of Shelby county. He was a man of immense
activity and of excellent business capacity. Jacob and Mary Cory both lived to an advanced age, and both
died in Wabash county. The remaining son of this New Jersey family was Samuel Reuben Chadwick. He
was born shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war, near Elizabethtown, New Jersey. In early manhood he
was married to Jerusha Hopping, of a neighboring family, and soon after he moved, with his young wife, to
Harrison, in Hamilton county, Ohio. He opened a general store there which he operated with success. Not many
years afterwards, however, he moved from Harrison, Hamilton county, to New Paris, in Preble county, which was near
or on the National road, and in closer touch with the tides of travel and commerce. After accumulating what was
for that time a large fortune, he retired from business and took up his abode in Winchester, in Preble county.
There, after a retired life of only a few years, he departed this life, about the year 1845, only a little
over sixty years of age. His wife , Jerusha, had preceded him into the great beyond by some ten or twelve
years.
To Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Reuben Chadwick were born two daughters
and six sons. Of the daughters, Ann Eliza, the older, married John W. Erwin, of Quaker lineage,
of Richmond, Indiana; Mr. Erwin later took up his abode in Hamilton, Ohio, where he embarked in various enterprises,
and became prominent in the business life of that city. Hannah Maria, the younger daughter, married
James Manning, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church. Both daughters are now dead. The
sons were Clinton, Caius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, Samuel Hopping, and Reuben.
Caius Cassius died in youth. The others all survived to old age, and were prominent factors in business
affairs in the several communities in which they lived. All are dead now, except Samuel Hopping Chadwick,
who lives at Dayton, Ohio, reputed to be wealthy. Reuben Chadwick was at one time a successful merchant in
Chicago. Marcus Brutus Chadwick, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Harrison, Hamilton
county, Ohio, April 12, 1820. Alice and Phoebe Carey, the Ohio poetesses, grew to womanhood in the
near neighborhood of his early home, and had attained some celebrity as authors when young Marcus knew them, and
occasionally visited at their home.
In the early boyhood of Marcus his father removed to
New Paris, Ohio, and there young Marcus Brutus grew to manhood. His youth and early manhood were employed
in study, varied with clerking in his father's store and in farming some on one of his father's farms; but while
yet in his teens he went to Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, and continued there until he closed his sophomore
year. He relinquished college life because of ill health. In early manhood he took up the study of
law, reading in the office of Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, at Hamilton, Ohio, and later he graduated from the
Law School, at Cincinnati. He opened an office for the practice of his profession at Eaton, Prebel county,
about the year 1847. In November, 1847, he was married to Mary Eliza Rossman, at Franklin, Warren county,
Ohio. He served one or two terms as Prosecuting Attorney of Preble county. He did not, however, find
the legal profession congenial, retired from it to acquire a large farm, five miles wouth of Eaton, in Preble county,
on Seven Mile creek. This was in the year 1858. In politics Marcus B. Chadwick was first a Whig, and
he became an ardent Republican on the organization of the Republican party in 1856. He was a delegate to
the Whig National Convention, at Baltimore in 1852, and voted there for the nomination of General Scott. In
1864 Marcus B. Chadwick failed financially, losing his fine farm of three hundred fifty-six acres in Preble county,
and came out of the crash utterly penniless and still burdened with debts. He then moved to Shelby county,
Indiana, and rented the fine farm of Alexander Rittenhouse, near Freeport. He lived in Freeport until his
death, which occurred January 30, 1877. He is buried in the Hanover cemetery.
Marcus B. Chadwick was possessed of considerable force
of character. He was possessed, also, of a good mind, well cultivated. He was a man of unimpeachable integrity,
and commanded the respect and confidence of all men with whom he came in contact in the various relations of life.
He was elected three times Trustee of Hanover township, Shelby county, and it has been said of him
that he was the most popular and satisfactory Trustee the township ever had, and that he conducted the affairs
of the township with greater precision and economy than any other person ever elected to that position in that
townshp, and, at the same time, with wise consideration of all the best interests of the township. Marcus
B. Chadwick, notwithstanding his intelligence and his capacity for affairs, never succeeded in accumulating an
estate, and at his death left no patrimony to his children, a matter which none of them ever regretted.
[The next four paragraphs are under Mary
Eliza Rossman.]
To Marcus B. and Mary Eliza Chadwick were born eight
children. They were George, born in 1848, and who died a mere babe; Mary, born in 1850,
and who died of scarlet fever when only three and one-half years old; Edward H., the subject of this sketch,
born March 20, 1852; Charles Caius, born April 2, 1854; Frank Rossman Chadwick, born
on April 1, 1856, on the Preble county farm, killed by a rearing horse falling upon him, in March, 1872; Marcus
Mahlon Chadwick, born in September, 1858, died of typhoid fever in September, 1869; Horace Manning
Chadwick, born in November, 1860, and Albert R. Chadwick, born in February, 1863, killed in a
railroad wreck, in June, 1893, at Lafayette, Indiana. These children were all born in Preble county, Ohio.
Charles Caius Chadwick has never married; he now resides on a farm near Dayton, Ohio. Horace Manning
Chadwick was married in November, 1883, to Mazie P. Hughes, of Van Buren township, Shelby county, Indiana;
he and his wife together have acquired a splendid farm of eighty acres, and have four children: Sarah,
now the wife of Oscar Miller, and Frank Rossman Chadwick, who has recently married Nell
Nail, daughter of John W. Nail, who resides in Shelby county, Brandywine township, four miles
from Shelbyville; Ruth Chadwick and Mary Katharine Chadwick.
Mary Eliza Chadwick, wife of Marcus B. Chadwick, departed
this life in September, 1871, in the fiftieth year of her life. A few days after this sad event Edward H.
Chadwick, at the age of nineteen years, entered the preparatory department of Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio.
He took with him an old Latin dictionary which is father had used. He studied faithfully the first year,
and at the opening of the college year, in September, 1872, he entered the freshman class of Miami University.
He had the distinction of leading his class through the freshman year. At the close of the freshman year
the university suspended. Young Chadwick then obtained a school in Hanover township, Shelby county, and taught
a term of six months, saving all of his salary by boarding at home. In the meantime, he had put out a wheat
crop of twenty acres, from which in the summer of 1874, he reaped an abundant crop, and with his savings accumulated
to more than five hundred dollars, he started to Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. This was in September,
1874. He entered the freshman class there, taking the academic course. He graduated from this famous
institution in 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He very largely made his own way through Dartmouth
College. The college terms were arranged so that students wishing to do so could teach twelve weeks each
winter and "make up" all studies gone over in the class room independently. Young Chadwick availed
himself of this opportunity and taught each winter of his course through college, and, during the summer vacations
he engaged in one and another enterprises as opportunity offered. By the death of a great-uncle, John Rossman,
at Hamilton, Ohio, in the year 1876, he inherited about four hundred dollars. He received a gift from another source,
under circumstances rather unique, of more than three hundred dollars. The inheritance and the gift greatly
aided him to pursue his course without interruption through the famous college. During the winter vacation
of 1876-77, the young student filled a vacancy in the high school, of Pittsford, Vermont, the usual period of twelve
weeks, this vacancy being occasioned by the illness of a teacher who was a brother of the auauthor, Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps. At the close of his college course, young Chadwick was in debt to the amount of about two hundred
dollars, which he repaid with the first money earned by him after his graduation. From his twelfth year young
Chadwick had experienced the pinch of very limited means. All through his youth and early manhood his life
was one of almost constant effort, working on the farm, attending the country school, filling in the hours between
with reading and study, all with the quite definite end in view of at least going through some college worthy of
the name. To this end he studied and labored and saved. It should be mentioned that Dartmouth College
has an unusually large number of "scholarships." A large number of the alumni and friends of the
college have made bequests of moneys and stocks, in sums running from two thousand dollars up, the incomes from
which, as invested, are devoted to paying the tuition of students. Young Chadwick was fortunate enough to
be presented with one of these scholarships, thereby saving for him the yearly tuition of ninety-six dollars.
During the years of young Chadwick's course through Dartmouth College the average attendance of students was about
five hundred to six hundred. In recent years the average attendance has been about one thousand three hundred.
The faculty now consists of about one hundred instructors. The tuition has been increased to one hundred
twenty-five dollars yearly, and the tuition realized to the college now runs up to an average of more than one
hundred thirty thousand dollars annually. During young Chadwick's college course there were four college dormitories,
now there are sixteen. The college has taken on the university regime, with elective courses, and is one
of the strong and notable educational institutions of our country.
Graduating from Dartmouth College in June, 1878, young
Chadwick found difficulty in securing a more remunerative position, and hence was driven to take a country school
for the school year of 1878-79. He taught this school in the Windfall district, two miles south of Freeport,
in Shelby county. At the conclusion of this school he took up the study of law in the office of the Hon.
Benjamin F. Love, at Shelbyville, in which office he remained about one year in all. On May 6, 1870,
young Chadwick was married to Mary Hughes, eldest daughter of Robert Hughes, of Van Buren township,
Shelby county. In the same year he was admitted to the Shelby County Bar. In the fall of 1879, however,
he engaged to teach another school term, this time taking the upper grade of the Fountaintown schools. During
this school year he and his young wife lived in Fountaintown, and their first child was born there. In the
fall of the year 1880 Mr. Chadwick and his family moved to Shelbyville. On January 1, 1881, he opened a law
office in that city, in the "Exchange Block," in which block he has remained to this day. He has
been, perhaps, as successful in his profession as the average practitioner in a provincial town. He has had
charge of a number of large interests, and has enjoyed some of the larger fees earned by the lawyers of Shelbyville.
For about eighteen years he was the owner of the most complete set of abstract of title books in Shelby county,
and during those years devoted much of his time to abstract of title work. In this connection he loaned moneys
for large money older, and probably in this period negotiated a larger aggregate of loans that any man in the county,
before or since.
Mr. Chadwick owes much in his abstract and loan business
to Harvey H. Daugherty, formerly a resident of Shelbyville, a lawyer, an abstract of title man, and a large
money lender. Mr. Daugherty was the compiler of the abstract work which Chadwick acquired in 1889. Mr. Daugherty
was and is a man of fine business ability, and of very excellent attainments in intellectual culture. He
is the author of a very excellent book, entitled "The Young Lawyer," a copy of which Mr. Daugherty
was generous enough to present to each of the lawyers and law-students of Shelbyville, at the time the book came
out. The writer of this sketch takes the liberty to copy here a letter addressed by Mr. Chadwick to Mr. Daugherty
in acknowledgment of the gift, showing thereby the appreciation of the book by at least one member of the legal
profession in Shelbyville, and giving some idea of Mr. Chadwick's style as a writer: -----
"Shelbyville, Indiana, July ---, 1907.
"Dear Mr. Daugherty: --- I have been feeling
a bit blue this July morning. The state of one's spirits is often inexplicable, you know. There is
a prospect of nothing doing in the office today. The sky is hidden by a curtain of clods; the atmosphere
is humid and oppressive with heat; all these conditions combined make an environment not conducive to happy rumination.
And, besides, a copious shower of rain has just fallen on several tons of new mown hay belonging to me. Such
an event, you know, is in the nature of a catastrophe to a hay crop. Not only does it take from the hay the
delightful odor so highly celebrated in song and story, but it reduces its commercial value, in large measure,
likewise. And so, whether I have the poetic temperament to appreciate the odor aforesaid, or am possessed
with the commercial instinct that looks most to the price of a commodity, the event before mentioned, you see,
is alike depressing.
"I have turned, therefore, to the contemplation
of something more pleasing. I have taken up the book this morning, the gift of which you so kindly made me,
not long ago, and have just now read another chapter in it. Even so, from day to day, has the book been to
me a most charming companion. Evening and morning have I read its delightful pages, to myself inaudibly,
aloud to my wife and my younger son and daughter. All alike we have been charmed with the many beautiful
things present on every page. I thank you gratefully for the preference which enables me to add the book
to my modest library. "The scope of the work (if I may venture to add a word by way of comment) is quite comprehensive.
The grouping of quotations is most admirable. In a word, your manner of treatment of the several subjects
comprised in the work is all that could be desired. The book, as a whole, is to be regarded, I take it, as
a tribute to the profession of law. It is, indeed, a noble tribute to a most honorable profession. It
comes from your hand an expression of your high appreciation of that profession. Its value as such is much
enhanced to all your friends, when they reflect that that expression is sincere.
"The book will be worthy a most careful reading
by every one fortunate enough to secure a copy of it, and of rereading many times. I shall read it many times,
I know, with unfailing delight and profit. But especially to the young lawyer and to the law student will
the book bring charm and enduring benefit; for it is reach in suggestions that appeal to the young lawyer. It
will place before every young aspirant in the profession a higher view thereof. It will give him a truer
and higher conception of his duties and responsibilities in the profession than he could have had had such a book
not reached his hands. Aside from pecuniary considerations (to which you allude in your preface, and which
are personal to yourself, of course, but of which I am prone to think, because I would be glad to have you reap
a large return for the labor you have bestowed upon the book), aside from these considerations, it is to be wished
that the book may be published in an edition of thousands, in a number far beyond what you seem to have contemplated,
so that it may come to the hands of the legal profession throughout the land.
Beseeching you, Mr. Daugherty, to pardon the tardiness
of my acknowledgment of your generous kindness in the gift of this treasure of a book, I remain, as ever, very
sincerely your friend.
"EDWARD H. CHADWICK."
[The next four paragraphs are about the HUGHES family
and have been placed under "Mary Hughes Chadwick".]
The Chadwick family, as far back as its annals can
be traced, have been unevangelical in religious belief. Some of the family have been Unitarians, others Universalists,
and some of the family have been agnostics. Edward H. and Mary Chadwick have never been connected with any
church organization. They have acquired for themselves a comfortable and spacious home in Shelbyville, and
Edward H. Chadwick is the owner of something over three hundred acres of valuable land in Shelby county, the acquisition
of nearly thirty years of unremitting labor in his profession, and in his abstract and loan business.
Five children have been born to Edward H. and Mary
Chadwick: John W. Erwin Chadwick, born January 20, 1880, now practicing dentistry in Shelbyville, and yet
unmarried; James Manning Chadwick, born January 14, 1882, died when only six weeks and six days old,
the first week in March, 1882; Edward Hughes Chadwick, born November 30, 1884, died March 9, 1889,
four years, four months and nine days old, a remarkably beautiful and promising child; Mary Rebecca Chadwick,
born June 15, 1891, and Marcus B. Chadwick, born March 2, 1894. Mary Rebecca Chadwick graduated from
the Shelbyville high school with the class of 1909. Marcus B. Chadwick will enter the Shelbyville high school
in September, 1909.
Throughout his adult years Edward H. Chadwick has been
affiliated with the Republican party, casting his first Presidential vote for Rutherford B. Hayes, in 1876, and
his last for William Howard Taft, in 1908. His son, Dr. John W. Erwin Chadwick, has always aligned himself
with the same party. Robert Hughes, father of Mary Chadwick, was always an uncompromising Democrat, but his
only son, John Hughes, has always been a Republican in his party affiliations.
Chadwick's History of Shelby County, Indiana by Edward H. Chadwick, B.A., assisted by well known local talent, B. F. Bowen & Co, Publishers: Indianapolis, IN, 1909, pp 866-876.
Copied by Phyllis Miller Fleming
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