• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

David M. Parry* MILTON RUBINCAM Thirty years ago one of the Titans of Indiana industry was David Maclean Parry of Indianapolis. Few men in the Hoosier State had risen to such an exalted position in the business world, or had enjoyed more the confidence of the political and financial leaders of the nation. His course in life was steadily upward. The author of a biographical sketch aptly wrote: The record of Mr. Parry’s life shows that from the time he was fifteen years of age his career has been marked by a series of successes -never of a failure. He disclosed from the first, self-reliance- obstacles were overcome as they appeared. His head and his heart and his hands were always in harmonious alliance. Under his masterful mind order and system predominated. 1 Inasmuch as we are all the products of our ancestors, his success may be ascribed in part to his heredity. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, there lived in Wales a civil engineer of “uncommon ability” named Henry Parry. This man resolved to try his luck in America. He accordingly settled in Pennsylvania where he followed his occupation. During the War of 1812 he is said to have served as an artilleryman. Afterwards he became a wheelwright and carpenter and built the first courthouse in Pennsylvania west of the Alleghany Mountains. According to family records, his wife was Sarah, the youngest daughter of Brigadier-Gen- era1 John Cadwalader, Pennsylvania Militia, of Revolutionary fame. This union allied him to some of the foremost families of the Keystone State, while his brother-in-law was a British Peer, the second Baron Erskine. Twelve children were born to Henry and Sarah Parry. The youngest, Thomas J. Parry, who was born September 24, 1822, became a farmer. He married Lydia, the daughter of David Maclean, who, from 1822 to 1829, was editor and pro- prietor of The Pittsburgh Gazette. After the birth of two of their children, Edward R. and David M. (the subject of this sketch), the family of Thomas Parry moved to Indiana * This article is condensed from the manuscript. “David M. Pam, of Indianapolis, and his Family,” by Milton Rubincam, the original of which has been presented to Mr. Parry’s widow, who is still a resident of Indianapolis. As the writer plans to issue a complete biography of Mr. Parry in the distant future, any additional in- formation relative to him will be highly welcome. Men of Progress, Indiana, ed. Will Cumback and Jacob B. Maynard (Indianapolis. 1899). 311-312. 166 Indiana Magazine of History and settled on a farm near Laurel, in Franklin County. He was first a Whig and then a Republican. Of the latter party he was an ardent member. In religious faith he was a Pres- byterian. His death occurred on September 21, 1899. The children of Thomas and Lydia Maclean Parry were: Edward R. ; David M. ; Jennie, who married C. F. Griffith ; Thomas H. ; and St. Clair. Of these, Edward and David were born in Pennsylvania, the others in Indiana. David Maclean Parry, second son of Thomas, was born at Ridgeville, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1852. It was the following year that the family settled in Indiana. Until he was sixteen or seventeen years of age, David lived on his father’s farm, attending school in the winter, but also receiving instructions from his mother, who apparently was a woman of fine education and superior intelligence. As he grew older, the boy began to realize that if he were to tie himself to a farm he would get nowhere in life. Therefore, he sought and obtained from his father per- mission to break loose and strike out for himself. The elder Parry had faith in his son. In 1869 he secured his first real job as a clerk in Laurel at $10.00 a month. For two years he worked in a drygoods store in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Afterwards, in rapid suc- cession, he was employed by his brother Edward in Columbia City, Iowa, and as bookkeeper for the New York Paint and Enamel Company of New York City, which he left to take a position with the wholesale drygoods firm of Oberholser and Keeper. While residing in New York in the early eighteen-sev- enties, he was the room-mate of Robert G. Dun, afterwards the founder of the great mercantile house bearing his name. In 1873 Parry located in Connersville, Indiana, where he es- tablished a hardware business with his brother Edward on capital furnished by their father. He was not entirely devoted to business, however, for on October 13, 1875, in Brooklyn, New York, he was married to Cora Harbottle, daughter of Thomas and Cora (McIntosh) Harbottle. The ceremony was performed by Mr Parry’s friend, the famous clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher. Of this union were born two daughters: Helen, who married Frank H. Fitzgerald, of Indianapolis; and Cora, who became the wife of Warren D. Oakes, of the same city. David M. Parry 167 In 1876 Thomas J. Parry experienced financial reverses which left him bankrupt. David and Edward promptly sold their business and gave the proceeds-$l3,000-to their father. “Such acts of filial devotion are more eloquent than words, however fitly spoken, and D. M. Parry when he sur- rendered all his savings to relieve his father of debt, dis- closed the nobility of his nature and designated himself as one who in the lottery of life ought to draw a capital prize.”2 From 1876 to 1878 David Parry was a traveling sales- man for the Pappenheimer and Ludlow Hardware Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The next four years he spent as a partner with Marion Jamison in a hardware firm at Rushville, Indiana. In 1882 he sold out his share of the business and planned to sell agricultural implements in South America. But in July of that year he suffered a great domestic affliction in the death of his wife at the early age of twenty-four years -an event which completely altered his plans. He now bought the C. Spring Cart Company at Rushville, and from this humble beginning sprang the great vehicle-manufacturing firm which in the course of a few years was destined to astonish the world with its immensity. On October 3, 1885, Mr. Parry took as his second wife Hessie Daisy Maxwell, daughter of John Milton and Isabella Maxwell, of Indianapolis. Mrs. Maxwell was the daughter of William and Isabella (Read) Moffett. The new Mrs. Parry was a well-born as her husband. The Maxwells were of an ancient Scottish house, one branch of which, in the person of Bezaleel Maxwell, the First, emigrated to Philadelphia about the beginning of the eighteenth century, afterwards removing to Albemarle County, Virginia. His grandson, Bezaleel 111, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was the founder of the Indiana line. His wife, Margaret, was the granddaughter of the Reverend James Anderson (1678-1740), a famous Pres- byterian clergyman, whose wife, Miss Sudt Garland, was descended from the noted Verplanck family of New Amster- dam, now New York. Of the many children of Bezaleel and Margaret Maxwell, the most noted was Dr. David Hervey Maxwell (1786-1854),who won fame not only as a physician and surgeon, but likewise as a member of the Constitutional Convention of Indiana, and a founder of Indiana University at Bloomington. John Milton Maxwell (1825-1912),a son of llbid., 911. 168 Indiana Magazine of History Edward Russell Maxwell and grandson of Bezaleel 111, was for many years engaged in the iron business in Indianapolis. His wife, Isabella Read Moffett, was descended from the Hon- orable George Read, of Delaware, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States. Thus it will be seen that Mrs. Parry’s family was not only inextricably associated with the history of the State of Indiana but had contributed towards starting the infant re- public on its historic career. She was born on April 22, 1856, and, at more than eighty-one years of age, still lives in In- dianapolis, beloved alike by her family and friends. David M. and Hessie Daisy (Maxwell) Parry were the parents of seven children: Lydia Maxwell, who married Wil- liam Carey Teasdale, Jr., of Saint Louis ; Maxwell Oswald, an aviator killed in action in the World War; Addison Julius; Isabella Maxwell ; Ruth, the wife of Victor Gorton ; Jeanette, who married Emmert Daniels; and David M., Jr. In 1886 Addison Byber and J. P. Pratt became inter- ested in Parry’s venture. Upon their request he removed to Indianapolis, where, with his brother Thomas, he established The Parry Manufacturing Company of which he became President. He started with only forty men on the payroll, but in a few years his firm was the largest vehicle-manufac- turing company of its kind in the world, covering a territory of twenty-two acres and employing 2800 men. According to a newspaper article of about 1893, the plant consisted of offices, a store and repository, piano-box buggy department, gear and wheels department, shipping- rooms, spring department, surrey department, wood-working department, spring and road-wagon department, boiler house, iron-working department, trimming department, and road- cart department. The anonymous writer of the article adds: This bare enumeration of departments and buildings . at least conveys an idea of what is, in its entirety, the largest plant in the world for the manufacture of pleasure vehicles. An inspection of the premises on foot is a good day’s work in itself, and such is the multiplicity of departments that the mind becomes somewhat confused, and fails to retain more than an im- pression that it is something huge.

Load more

  10

Copy Link