Charles B. Landis was a close friend of Lew Wallace. He also happened to be a United States Congressman elected from the 9th District near Delphi. Landis was born in Logansport and was an 1883 graduate of Wabash College. After graduating he worked on the Logansport Journal, but moved to […]
People Lew Knew
20 posts
Recently I had two literary guests visiting the Study who asked about Charles Major of Shelbyville, Indiana. I didn’t recognize the name at first, though I should have—Major is remembered now for having written The Bears of Blue River, but he was a celebrated author in his day. His book […]
The years from 1880 to 1920 are often recognized as the Golden Age of Indiana Authors. There had been well respected Hoosier authors before 1880 and certainly many literary leaders in the years after 1920, but beginning with Lew Wallace and his book Ben-Hur, there was an outpouring of best […]
One hundred and fifty years ago in April of 1862, the Battle of Shiloh raged in Tennessee. Considered one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, it saw its share of men who would go down in history. Some of these men would be remembered for their valor that […]
Lew Wallace was not the only famous member of the 11th Indiana Volunteers during the Civil War. Colonel Dan Macauley also became famous. His face graced the cover of the sheet music for the “The 11th Indiana Quickstep” a toe-tapping song composed for the piano by Hubert J. Schonacker in […]
Off Wabash Avenue on the east side of Crawfordsville is Canby Avenue. It is one of the few local reminders of E.R.S. Canby, a local boy, friend of Lew Wallace, and one of Crawfordsville’s five Civil War generals. The Canby family settled in Crawfordsville in the 1830s and lived in […]
Helping with the care and maintenance of the grounds of the Lew Wallace property by incoming freshmen at Wabash College is not a recent phenomenon. These young men have been helping the museum for years and actually helped General and Mrs. Wallace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. […]
Josiah K. Lilly, Sr., was a generation younger than Lew Wallace. Despite that, the two men shared a great friendship. Josiah’s father, Eli Lilly, served as a colonel in the Civil War and founder of the pharmaceutical company. Josiah received his college diploma in pharmacy in 1882. In the fall […]
In the late 19th century, Crawfordsville became known as the Athens of Indiana because of the impressive number of successful authors who claimed Crawfordsville home. At the same time, it was also known as the archery capital of the United States. Maurice Thompson was a celebrated leader in both of […]
According to a recent article in the New York Times, celebrated author Mark Twain was “often savage in his commentary” on other literary works. Voracious readers of the 19th and early 20th centuries commonly wrote in the margins of their books. Twain annotated already-published volumes by renowned authors Rudyard Kipling, […]