William Hayden English Family Papers, 1741–1928
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Collection # M 0098 OMB 0002 BV 1137–1148, 2571–2572, 2574 F 0595p WILLIAM HAYDEN ENGLISH FAMILY PAPERS, 1741–1928 Collection Information 1 Biographical Sketches 2 Scope and Content Note 9 Series Contents 13 Processed by Reprocessed by Betty Alberty, Ruth Leukhardt, Paul Brockman, and Pamela Tranfield 08 January 2003 Manuscript and Visual Collections Department William Henry Smith Memorial Library Indiana Historical Society 450 West Ohio Street Indianapolis, IN 46202-3269 www.indianahistory.org COLLECTION INFORMATION VOLUME OF 103 boxes, 3 oversize boxes, 15 bound volumes, 1 microfilm COLLECTION: reel, 76 boxes of photographs (16 document cases, 12 oversize boxes, 17 boxes cased images, 2 boxes lantern slides, 27 boxes glass negatives, 2 boxes film negatives), 6 boxes of graphics (1 document case, 5 oversize boxes). COLLECTION 1741–1928 DATES: PROVENANCE: Mrs. William E. English Estate, May 1942; Indiana University, July 1944; Forest H. Sweet, Battle Creek, Michigan, August 1937, July 1945, Dec. 1953; University of Chicago Libraries, April 1957; English Foundation, Indianapolis IN, 1958; Mrs. A. G. Parker, Lexington, IN, Sept. 1969; King V. Hostick, Springfield IL, March 1970; Duanne Elbert, Eastern Illinois University, Oct. 1974; Hyman Roth, Evanston IL, Aug. 1975 RESTRICTIONS: Negatives may be viewed by appointment only. Inquire at the Reference Desk. COPYRIGHT: REPRODUCTION Permission to reproduce or publish material in this collection RIGHTS: must be obtained from the Indiana Historical Society. ALTERNATE FORMATS: RELATED English Theatre Records (M 0451) HOLDINGS: ACCESSION 1937.0803; 1942.0512; 1944.0710; 1945.0707; 1953.1226; NUMBERS: 1957.0434; 1958.0015; 1969.0904; 1970.0317; 1974.1018; 1975.0810 NOTES: Originally processed by Charles Latham, 1983 Indiana Historical Society William Hayden English Family Papers Page 1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES William Hayden English, 1822–96 William H. English was born in Lexington, Scott County, Indiana, on 27 August 1822. He was the son of Elisha G. and Mahala Eastin English. His paternal grandfather Elisha English had moved from Delaware to Kentucky in 1790, and his father moved to Lexington in 1818. On his mother’s side he was descended from Jost Hite, one of the earliest settlers of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Through Hite he was related indirectly both to George Rogers Clark and to Isaac and Joseph Bowman, two of Clark’s chief lieutenants in his campaign of 1777-1778. William H. English was educated locally and spent three years at Hanover College. He studied law and was admitted to the bar at the early age of 18, in 1840. In the same year he began his career in politics, serving as a delegate to the Democratic state convention in Indianapolis. He soon reaped his first political award, with an appointment as postmaster at Lexington from President Tyler in 1842, when Tyler broke with the Whigs who had elected him. In 1843 English was appointed clerk of the Indiana House of Representatives. With the election of James K. Polk as president in 1844, English began a well-organized campaign for a government post. He obtained recommendations from most prominent Democrats in the state, especially Jesse D. Bright, who at this time began his three terms as senator. This began a long correspondence with Bright, dealing both with political matters and with requests by Bright for loans to himself and his friends. As a result of his campaign English achieved his modest request—a clerkship in the Treasury Department. He held this post till the end of Polk’s term in March 1849. In 1847, while serving in Washington, English married Emma Mardulia Jackson. The English family continued to be active in Democratic politics. At the 1848 Democratic Convention, Elisha English and his brother Revel were vice-presidents, and two other brothers were delegates. In 1850 William H. English served as clerk of the Senate committee on claims. As early as 1847 English was making considerable business investments. These included government bonds and a land purchase in Wisconsin. In 1849 he embarked on a rather complicated real estate deal in San Francisco. This ended in a suit among English and his partners and caused a dispute which lasted over thirty years. The year 1850 saw English debut with electoral politics. In 1850–51 he was principal secretary of the Indiana Constitutional Convention which revised the original 1816 constitution. In 1851–52 he served in the Indiana House of Representatives; in 1852 he became speaker, the youngest man ever to be elected to that office. This was a particularly productive session of the legislature, which passed many acts revising the state laws in accordance with the new state constitution. Indiana Historical Society William Hayden English Family Papers Page 2 In 1852 English was elected for the first of four terms in the national House of Representatives, representing Indiana’s second district. In his first term he served on the committee on territories, and was therefore involved in the writing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which became law in 1854. In committee English proposed an amendment embodying the principle of popular sovereignty which became the main feature of the act. In the election of 1854 English was one of three northern Democrats who voted for Kansas-Nebraska to be re-elected. In the campaign he took a strong stand against the Know-Nothing party which was particularly violent in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Again re-elected in 1856, he served during the 35th Congress as chairman of the committee on post-office and post roads. Toward the end of this Congress, English became involved with the question of ‘bloody Kansas.’ After the principle of popular sovereignty was applied to the Kansas territory by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the pro-and-anti- slavery faction had been doing their utmost to fill Kansas with their adherents. In late 1857 a pro-slavery convention at Lecompton (anti-slavery men refused to vote) formed a pro-slavery constitution for Kansas; however in an election in January this Lecompton constitution was rejected at the polls (pro-slavery people having refused to vote.) The national Democratic administration was anxious for Kansas to come in as a slave state. The U. S. Senate passed a bill admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution; the House rejected this bill; the Senate asked for a conference committee; and English was one of three representatives appointed to this committee, which was headed by Alexander H. Stephens. English had originally been opposed to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, on grounds that the people of Kansas had not had a fair chance to express their views. The conference committee came forward with a bill usually known as the English bill (though Stephens in his account of the committee’s work did not mention English). This bill in effect called for a re-vote on the Lecompton constitution, and provided that, if the constitution were approved, Kansas would be given a grant of 5 million acres of government lands. The English Bill passed both houses of Congress by narrow majorities, but Kansas voters turned down the Lecompton constitution in an election held in August 1858. Whether English’s aims were for popular sovereignty, or for legislative compromise, or for a pro-slavery Kansas, is a matter of argument. For his work in this matter, English was offered a high government post by President Buchanan, but turned it down. Somewhat against his wishes, English was re-elected to a fourth term in Congress, in 1858. As things grew more bitter between North and South, he stood with Douglas against secession. Though not a delegate, he worked at the split-away Democrat convention at Charleston to argue against splitting the party. In 1854, when the Smithsonian Institution was established, he was appointed to the Board of Regents as a representative of the House, and served for six years. This ended a twenty-year period during most of which English was involved in one way or another with the Indiana or national legislature. During this period English displayed Indiana Historical Society William Hayden English Family Papers Page 3 ability, efficiency, and legislative promise, but rarely was clarified with a positive idea or principle, with the possible exception of popular sovereignty in the territories, which was itself a political compromise. At the beginning of the Civil War, English was offered a military commission by Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton, but refused it. He spent the next seventeen years in a new career, in banking. Previous to this he had had some contact with James F.D. Lanier of Madison, whose career had also moved from politics to banking. First, English began negotiations, never completed, for control of the Jeffersonville branch of the Third State Bank. Then, in 1863, with the announcement by Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase of the National banking system, he was involved, along with Lanier and John C. New, in chartering the First National Bank in Indianapolis, with a capital of $150,000. English was immediately elected president of the bank, and served until 1877. In 1865 he moved to a handsome mansion on the Governor’s Circle in Indianapolis, He became involved in extensive real estate ownership. One controversial part of his bank presidency is the degree to which he took advantage of economic conditions in the poor times of 1873-1876 to obtain more property by foreclosures. He also regained a controlling interest in the Indianapolis Street Railways Co., and served as its treasurer. Shortly before the death of his wife in 1877, English resigned his bank presidency, and sold his stock in the street railways. He was soon launched on a second career in politics. In 1876 he was a main speaker at the Indianapolis meeting ratifying the nomination of Tilden and Hendricks.