OLD CITIZEN DEAD

Apoplexy Ends The Life Of Dr. George White Sloan.

Fatal Illness Began Oct. 25 with the First Seisure and His Condition Had Been Critical.

Dr. Sloan Touched Closely The Heart Of The City.

In Business, Social World and Varied Activities He Was a Figure of Sterling Worth

Connecting Link With Past

He Saw Indianapolis Grow From Village To Metropolis

President of School Board and Member of Nation Societies—His Reminiscences of Early Days.
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Dr. George White Sloan, head of the Sloan Drug Company and president of the Indianapolis School Board, died yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock at his home, 604 North Meridian street. Dr. Sloan was stricken with apoplexy last October, and had rallied since only enough to permit several short walks. Yesterday, while asleep, the second and final stroke came, and death followed in three minutes.

The span of Dr. Sloan's life was an unusually great one. Fifty-five years of business activity on Washington street was a career unequaled in Indianapolis. It was the strongest link of the present generation of the city with the first that made its commercial development. His business life covered the growth of Indianapolis from a city of less than ten thousand persons to one of two hundred thousand: witnessed the beginnings and subsequent progress of the railroads of the city to their present magnitude; in fact, lived to see the city develop from its provincial character to a metropolitan place, and all of the time being a merchant within three hundred feet of one spot in Washington street.

National Reputation.

Dr. Sloan was a pharmacist of national reputation and his formulas and advice for manufacturing medicines, particularly tinctures, were used liberally in the United States Dispensatory. He attended the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy a short time before the war for the Union, and studied with such celebrated men as Professors Thomas, Proctor and Bridges, and he also took a special course in Chemistry with Professor Parrish, who was the father of American pharmacy. He has been for many years lecturer on pharmacy in the Indiana Medical College, which honored him with the degree of M.D. In recognition of his services to pharmacy (and these services were never selfish) Purdue University gave him the degree of doctor of pharmacy. In 1879 and 1880 he was president of the American Pharmaceutical Society, and in May, 1900, he was made one of its five trustees. He was one of the few life members of the organization-another honor in recognition of his services— and during his decades of membership had made friendships with the most advanced pharmacists and chemists of the country. Among these friendships none were so great as those of Joseph R. Remington, of Philadelphia, author of the "Practice of Pharamcy"— the vogue for many years and still so—and the recognized head of American pharmacy, and John Url Lloyd, of Cincinnati, author of "Etidorpha" and "Warwick of the Knobs" Mr. Lloyd is a leading chemists of the world, and since Dr. Sloan's affliction he has made many visits to his bedside.

Married in 1867

Dr. Sloan was married in this city in 1867 to Miss Caroline Bacon, daughter of Hiram Bacon. Mrs. Sloan and three children, George B. Sloan, Mary A. Sloan and Frank T. Sloan— survive him and were at his bedside at his death.

For a year past premonitory indications of apoplexy were apparent. Oct. 25 last Dr. Sloan was stricken down and taken to his home. He improved, but the improvement was never regarded as more than temporary. Several times he made a short sally from his home—where he had lived for thirty years—but never was there a hope of recovery. While his death was expected, still it came so suddenly yesterday that it proved a shock. The hand of death first lulled him by sleep, during which his heavy breathing indicated the final touch of the grim visitor. Two sisters of Dr. Sloan survive. They are Mrs. Mary A. Clark and Miss Sarah M. Sloan, of Philadelphia.

Dr. Sloan was a member of the One-hundred-and-thirst-second Indiana Volunteers during the war for the Union, and has long been a member of George H. Thomas Post, G. A. R. He has been president of the Board of Trade and has also been treasurer of Mystic Tie Lodge, F. and A. M., for thirty years. Continuously since 1871 he has been a vestryman at Christ Church. He was also a member of the Loyal Legion. He was first president of the Indiana State Board of Pharmacy and was its secretary at the hour of his death.

Arrangements for the funeral will be announced later. It will be in charge of the Masonic fraternity, in which he was a thirty-third-degree member, receiving this degree at Chicago in 1893. He was first elected to the School Board in 1896, and re-elected as the long-term member when the board was reorganized four years ago. He has been its president since the reorganization. He was the first treasurer of the board to account for the interest earnings of the funds in his custody.

Born In Pennsylvania

Dr. Sloan was born in the midsummer of 1835 at Harrisburg, Pa., where his father, John Sloan, was an undertaker and a cabinet maker. He decided to migrate to Chicago for prudential reasons, chief among which was the inflation of the family pocketbook. With his family in charge, in the spring of 1837, he came down the Ohio river to Madison, Ind., and there started over the Michigan road, a thoroughfare of emigration from Madison to Chicago. Arriving at Indianapolis he found a number of Harrisburg people and a congenial place to settle. The canal was being built, the old statehouse was nearing completion and the town was on a boom. He settled in Indianapolis and opened an undertaking establishment where L.S. Ayre's store is now situated.

The only other undertaker in Indianapolis was Joseph Stretcher, whose establishment was where Albert Gall's store is now. None of the relatives of Mr. Stretcher, the pioneer undertaker, is now living here.

George W. Sloan inherited intelligence, energy and pluck. In his youth nearly all school were private and he attended the first school in Marion county sustained in part at public expense. It was located on the northwest side of Kentucky avenue, just above Maryland street, and the teacher was Alexander Jameson, father of Dr. Henry Jameson. The old building is still standing. He attended also the old Marion County Seminary on University square, and a school on Pennsylvania street, just above the site of the First Baptist Church, kept by the Rev. William A. Holliday.

Enters Drug Business

In 1848, as a clerk, he entered the drug store of his uncle, David Craighead, located on Washington street, three squares east of Dr. Sloan's present store. In 1850 Mr. Craighead, who had formed a partnership with Robert Browning, moved to East Washington street. In 1854 Mr. Craighead died and Mr. Browning bought his interest.

In 1862 Mr. Sloan became a full partner of Mr. Browning. In 1886 the firm met financial ruin and Dr. Sloan went forth penniless. His friends aided him in organizing the Sloan Drug Company, which had been a success. Within recent yearss he moved to 22 West Washington street.

In 1850, when he first began to sell drugs on Washington street, there were only four drug stores in the city, and they were kept by William Hanneman, Dr. Samuel Ramsey, David Craighead and Tomlinson Bros. The druggist's stock then consisted of medicines, paints, oils, varnishes and dye stuffs.

Few men in Indianapolis have memories as richly stored with reminiscences as Dr. Sloan. His early recollections, given by him a few years ago, dating back to 1840, cluster around the little undertaking shop kept by his father. "In those days there were no ready-made coffins." he said, "but all were made to order. Often my father would be roused at midnight and required to go to work on a hurry-up order. Coffins were made of cherry and black walnut, varnished, and a little later were covered with cloth.

"The roads were simply awful, and only in rare cases did the hearse go out of town, but the frontiersmen came in with their big wagons and waited until the coffins were finished. There wasn't a single gravel road in Marion county then. The hearse was pulled by one horse and was not big enough to admit a modern coffin. The coffin of that day was widest at the shoulder point and tapered toward the ends. It had no handles and was placed on a bier, which the pallbearers carried.

The Pioneer City.

"Indianapolis in 1840 was a town of 2,500, consisting of a straggling row of houses from Pogue's run to White river, and extending about two squares on each side of the Washington street. There were a few two and three-story buildings on Washington street. Off that street there were probably a dozen brick houses in the town. Most of the houses were frame, with a considerable sprinkling of log cabins.

"Of the real old buildings still standing none antedates, in my opinion, the old structures on the south side of East Washington street between New Jersey and East streets. They have been there as long as I remember. The barroom used by Harry Walker has been devoted to the same purpose forty-eight years, and the building is about ten years older. the dwelling flat at the southwest corner of Michigan and Illinois streets was built by Jacob Vandergrift, the father of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ephraim Colestock nearly fifty years ago. Colestock has two sons living here—Wesley, a carpenter, and George, a bookbinder.

"Away back as far as I can remember the most elegant residence in town was the two-and-a-half-story house still standing on the west side of Meridian street just north of the Blacherne. It was built by Dr. George W. Mears.

"In 1840 a log cabin was built where the new Claypool stands. In front of it stood a pole and on top of it was a suspended a hard cider barrel. this cabin, fifteen feet square, was Whig campaign headquarters. On the alley west was Buck's Tavern, a two-story hostelry with a buck's head painted on a swinging sign. On Illinois street, with an entrance where the Bates House entrance now stands, was a two-story frame house known as Armstrong's Tavern. This old hotel is still standing on the east side of Senate avenue just above Vermont street, to which place it was moved when the Bates was built. It was the first building in Indianapolis to have the word 'saloon' on it. In the early day saloons here were known as 'coffee houses.'

Early Recollections.

"About the year 1850 nearly every grocery store in Indianapolis kept liquors. Whisky was remarkably cheap, compared with present prices. It sold for $8 a barrel, and farmers would frequently drive in with their big wagons and take home a barrel or two. The best brandy, which now sells at $3 a pint, then sold at $4 to $6 a gallon. A drink of whisky cost nothing, and it was customary for grocers to keep a barrel open so that their callers could help themselves.

"I distinctly remember that when Gen. Joe Lane, one of the early heroes, and in 1860 Democratic nominee for Vice President on the ticket with Breckinridge, came home form the Mexican War the people gave a barbecue for him in Biddle's pasture, which was bounded by Greenlawn Cemetery, White river, Maryland and West streets— a beautiful meadow of forty acres. A famous colored cook named John Crowder superintended the roasting of the pigs, sheep and oxen. Conveniently located on the grounds were two or three barrels of whisky, with tincups, so that everybody might partake.

"Along about 1852 the great temperance wave then sweeping over the country reached Indianapolis, and temperance speeches were made daily on the street corners. The State Legislature passed what was called the Maine law, because the State of Maine enacted the first law of the kind. It forbade any person selling liquors except an agent appointed by the county, and he was to sell only for medicinal, mechanical or communion purposes.

"Roderick Beebe, who kept a saloon next to W. B. Burford's place, broke the Maine law in Indiana. He violated the law, carried the case to the Supreme Court, and won on the ground of unconstitutionality. In 1862 the first law was passed placing a tax on liquor. It imposed a tax of $2 a gallon. There were then three distilleries in the county. The dealers, in anticipation of such a law, had stocked heavily, and they made a great deal of money by selling at increased prices.

Cholera Epidemic.

"There is actually no comparison of profits now with profits we received from the drug business in those days. For instance, a popular sarsaparilla, which we bought at $4 per dozen bottles, we sold at #1 a bottle. A well-known cordial cost us 37½ cents per dozen bottles, and we sold it at 10 cents a bottle, and other profits were equally large.

"But goods sold now are of immensely better quality than goods in those days. Gum opium was often loaded with musket balls of an ounce each to increase its weight. It is a very costly drug, and I have known a little package of 100 pounds to bring $2,000 in war times. When druggists learned to find the bullets by prodding with an awl, small shot were inserted to the extent of two or three ounces to the pound, and then we had greater trouble in detecting the fraud.

"In 1850 and 1851, in common with others still living here, passed through an epidemic of cholera. There had been a revolution in Europe that caused a great emigration of French and German people. A good many came to Indianapolis and settled in the vicinity of North Noble street and what is known as 'Irish hill.' They brought the cholera epidemic to Indianapolis.

"For a time, it raged fiercely. A man that worked for us—a very strong man, but a great whisky drinker—died in four hours of the plague. Undertakers could not supply the demands made upon them, and the bodies were thrown into cheap coffins, covered with carpet, and hustled away in carts, instead of hearses, to the cemetery. For a long time, it was virtually a crime to eat anything green. There was a city Board of Health then, but it was not overburdened with knowledge and was not clothed with any authority. All it could do was to advise. Finally the plague died out, and the town breathed more freely.

"In the year 1855 we sold at our store 15,500 ounces of sulphate of quinine. In that year the State was practically soaked in malaria, and trains were held at the depot long after starting time waiting for shipments of quinine into the malaria-infested territory about Lafayette and farther north. Indiana was heavily timbered and covered thickly with underbrush. When the hot sun came out after long periods of rain fermentation would ensue.

"People lived in log houses that were decaying, and slept close to the ground. As a result they inhaled the poisonous atmosphere and got sick. After the war men that had saved money in army service invested it in sawmills, and the timber began to disappear. At the same time the tile men commenced their work, and, as a result, ague, which, up to 1870, had been the prevafling fashion, disappeared entirely."

The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Ind.)
16 Feb. 1903, Monday · PG 3