Hon. Stephen Neal

HON. STEPHEN NEAL.

Stephen Neal, the seventh child of John and Priscilla Neal, was born on the 11th of June, A.D., 1817, in Pittsylvania County, State of Virginia. In the autumn of 1819 his father and family moved from Virginia to Bath County, Ky. His father’s occupation was farming, and the subject of this sketch was trained in the pursuit of farming until he was eighteen years of age. His mother having died when he was in his fifteenth year, his father thenceforth gave him his time. Up to the time of his mother’s death he had had only a few months’ schooling, the father residing on a farm remote from school facilities, there then being no public school system in Kentucky. However, the subject of this sketch at the age of eight years had learned to read. The family’s supply of books was scant, consisting of a few elementary school books, a few histories, biographies, and the bible. Our subject read and diligently studied all of these; and, as opportunity afforded, he would borrow books from the neighbors. Among these were the histories of Greece and Rome, Harvey’s Meditations, and Wesley’s Notes on the Bible. Such was his early home reading. He was an indefatigable student, though his school privileges had been so very limited. In his sixteenth year he went to reside with and labor for a neighbor by the name of John Rice, who had a fair supply of books, and with whom a school teacher named Thomas Nelson also resided. This teacher had a good library, and was a Latin and Greek scholar. While residing in this family our subject availed himself of the opportunity he then had, in reading in a promiscuous manner. In his eighteenth year he left this family and entered a country school, laboring of mornings, evenings and Saturdays to pay his way while attending school. In his nineteenth year he attended the academy at Moorefield, Ky., which was under the control of Prof. Henry T. Trimble, an educator of much excellence, and a graduate of Transylvania University, Ky.

While in this academy our subject made a specialty of studying the Latin and Greek languages; he attended this school about one year, and was then employed to teach a country school near Moorefield, Ky.; here he taught one year, being a more diligent student than any of his scholars. In the twenty-second year of his age he was married to Frances Ann, daughter of William Atkinson. After this, he still continued to teach school, but being unwilling to follow this occupation for a life-time pursuit, he commenced the study of the law, reading what time was not devoted to his school work. In March, 1841, he went to the city of Madison, Ind., and continued his law studies in the law office of the Hon. Joseph G. Marshall, who had a very extensive law library. After studying here about one year, he returned to Carlisle, Ky., and staid for a while in the law office of Wm. Norvell, Esq. Here he applied for a license to practice his profession, and was examined as to his qualifications by Hon. Judge Reed, of Maysville, and Judge Simpson, of Mount Sterling, Ky., and by them he was licensed to practice law in all the courts of that commonwealth. He was first admitted to the bar at Carlisle, Ky., and there he did his first legal practice. In the autumn of 1843 he removed to Lebanon, Indiana, and resided on a small farm one-half mile east of the town. In size, Lebanon was then a village, surrounded by swamps and lagoons of water, and much of the county was then a native wilderness. Here he resided on the farm until October, 1851, at which date his wife died, and he broke up housekeeping. Soon after coming to Lebanon in 1843 he entered into the practice of the law, but the legal business here was then mostly done by attorneys from Indianapolis, who came and attended court during its terms. In what legal work Mr. Neal did, and in farming some, he managed to obtain a support. In August, 1846, he was elected from this, Boone County, a Representative to the state legislature, and again in August, 1847, he was re-elected to the same office.

During this last named session of the legislature the important subject of a settlement of the state debt of Indiana was pending. During the years 1841 to 1847 the state had failed to pay even the interest on the state debt which had been incurred in the internal improvement system of the state. The debt then, on the outstanding bonds of the state, amounted to about eighteen million dollars. The creditors of the state were urgent for some adjustment of the debt. An able attorney from London, England, representing the bondholders, visited that session of the legislature, urging the state to accept the proposition which he made on behalf of the bondholders. To this end, said attorney presented to the legislature a bill known as the Butler bill, for the adjustment of the state debt. This bill was so craftily and plausibly devised as to mislead and deceive all but the most skillful attorneys. It was put on its passage in the house and passed by a vote of seventy ayes against thirty nays. There was at that time a majority for it in the senate. With only the thirty members in the house opposed to it, and the minority in the senate opposed to it, there seemed but little hope of defeating it. Mr. Neal co-operated with the minority, and by management the minority of the legislature defeated the Butler bill. But a detailed history of how this was effected can not be given here. Suffice to say, that the minority, in a bill which they had prepared, offered to transfer the bondholders the Wabash and Erie Canal, and all its appurtenances and lands donated to construct it, for one-half of the state debt, and to issue new bonds for the other half, which was finally accepted by the bondholders. This was a measure of great importance to the state.

At this session Mr. Neal was active in urging the adoption of a homestead law; he wrote an able article on this subject, which was first published in the Indianapolis Sentinel and afterwards in the other papers; and so prepared the way that at the next session of the legislature a homestead law was enacted. Mr. Neal also introduced a joint resolution into the legislature prohibiting the legislature from granting divorces by legislative action. This resolution passed, and from that day to the present, the legislature has never granted another divorce. Mr. Neal’s position was, that granting divorces belonged to the judicial department of the government, and not to the legislative department. This measure has since become a part of the state constitution. At the same session, Mr. Neal urged the adoption of a resolution instructing our senators and requesting our representatives in congress to adopt “the Wilmot proviso” forever inhibiting slavery in all the free territories. Mr. Neal had been educated in the Jeffersonian theory of government, and was elected on both occasions as a Jeffersonian Democrat. In 1848 he co-operated with the free soil movement to inhibit the extension of slavery in the free territories of the United States. And when the Republican party was organized in 1856 he became an active worker in that party, and when the war of rebellion came in 1861 he acted with the union party, though on account of ill health he did not enter the military service. At that time he was partly paralyzed by neuralgia in his face and right arm. After the war had ended he still acted with the Republican party, until after the measures of reconstruction had been adopted and fixed in the constitution of the national government. As a means of reconstruction on a fixed basis, he prepared and advised the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, being the originator of that amendment to the constitution of the United States, which was recommended by the action of congress in June, 1866, and ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures soon after, and became a part of the constitution. Since the measures of reconstruction were consummated, he ceased to take any active part in political affairs, and has been regarded as a non-partisan. In 1878 he wrote several able articles in favor of a well regulated greenback, or full legal tender national currency; hence, he was by some called a Greenback partisan. But he never favored the extreme measures of that party in its early days. He has taken no active part as a partisan since the adoption of the measures of national reconstruction. During the years that he took an active part in politics, he wrote extensively for different leading newspapers, but most of his writings were published anonymously.

In November, 1857, he married for his second wife Miss Clara, daughter of Charles Davis, Esq., and by her had born to him five sons and two daughters, of which children four sons and one daughter are yet living, their mother having died March 4, 1879. In May, 1880, he was married to Mrs. Laura A., widow of George Kernodle, deceased, and by her he has had one daughter and one son.

In the year 1856 the celebrated phrenologist, Professor O. S. Fowler, of New York, delineated Mr. Neal’s characteristics as follows. He said: “Your constitution is first best – you are the toughest, hardiest, most enduring of men; can wear through what would break down ninety-nine men in every one hundred. Such ability to learn and accomplish does not often come under my hands. You do not know how much you can do, if you simply observe the health conditions. Your functions work easily, like a machine well lubricated, so that you expend but little energy – that is, all work easily right up to the very mark. Your proclivities run altogether in the line of intellect; they also run strongly in that of moral, and hence you might and perhaps should have made a minister, though you are not now as faithful to creeds as you once were, for you are doing your own thinking; yet the religious sentiment grows. You are a natural theologian, but you love religion discussed from the natural standpoint quite as well as the biblical; are a real reformer – a true lover of your race, and interested in whatever promises good to man; plenty benevolent enough, perhaps too much so; are unable to witness or cause pain or death, even to animals; would make a good criminal lawyer, for you would do the best you could to mitigate the punishment of your client; have an excellent talent for the practice of the law – are better adapted to that vocation than any other, except that you are a little too good and have not fight enough, so associate yourself with one more pugnacious; you are a little too good for your own good – will often settle difficulties rather than to litigate them. You enjoy the universal esteem of all who know you; are one of the most friendly men; are every way popular, but destined to become more so, for you make friends of all you meet. You enjoy unlimited confidence; are able to pass from thing to thing readily; have a fair appetite to eat, but do not live to eat; have a fair love of money, but do not live to get rich – infinitely prefer honor to money; are becoming more shrewd and politic of late than formerly, yet naturally candid; are very cautious and leave no stone unturned in accomplishing ends – are in fact too cautious, yet extremely stable when your mind is made up; are wanting in self-esteem – too apt to feel unworthy and hang back; are too diffident – need brass, sir, more than anything else. You are the personification of honor, and honorable; perfectly just, even too scrupulous; are a dear lover of nature, her beauty, her perfections; have only fair mirth, and evince it more in argument than anything else; excel in arguing by ridicule; an accurate eye; a great deal of method – are good in figures and a natural scholar, and capable of excelling in all the natural sciences. You are uncommonly well informed, and have one of the best memories that come under my hands; are a splendid writer, and would make as good an editor as there is. I recommend you to try writing for the press; would draw up good reports, resolutions, etc., and make a first-rate wheel horse in any convention – in fact, anywhere; use beautiful language, and every word in its place, and the very word, though not as flippantly as correct; are very discriminating, original, and will state your points so that everybody accedes to them.” Such are the words of Professor Fowler. Those who are well and intimately acquainted with Mr. Neal can judge how exactly the foregoing language corresponds with his characteristics, hence we submit what Professor Fowler has said of him.

In religion, Mr. Neal is a member of the Church of Christ. His father and mother, and his first father-in-law and mother-in-law were Calvinistic or Predestinerian Baptists, hence his early religious impressions were under the influence of that dogma, which in early life came well-nigh carrying him into the opposite extreme of Universalism; but after a careful and thorough consideration of these two theories, he discarded both as contrary to the revelation of God in the Word. After this, however, for a number of years he remained within the confusing clouds of partisan and unscriptural theories, much of which to him seemed not in harmony with divine revelation. He had never had any doubts that the holy bible contains the divinely inspired revelation of God to man. In the years of 1849-’50 he attended the meetings of a small band of the Disciples of Christ, which held their meetings in Lebanon, and at these meetings he learned that they took the bible as their “only guide in religious faith and practice,” discarding all men-made creeds. This position met his hearty approval. So, in June, 1851, while the beloved Thomas Lockhart was holding a meeting, he united with this band of disciples, known as the congregation of the Church of Christ, at Lebanon. Being a ready and fluent speaker, he was urged to take part in the public exercises and labors of the congregation, and he did so heartily. His labors in “the word and doctrine” showed that he had made the holy scriptures a careful study, and hence were acceptable to the church. In February, 1852, he was, by the action of the church, ordained and licensed to preach “The Word,” the gospel; and during the next three years he devoted his whole time to the ministry; traveled, and visited, and preached in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, besides laboring regularly, for a time, for several congregations, having been employed by the church at Frankfort, Ind.; at Christian Chapel, near Ladoga; also, at the church near Colfax, and at the church near Kirklin, and at Weah Prairie. But, being poor, and not receiving sufficient financial support, he had (sad as it was for him) to resume the law practice for a maintenance; but he still continued, as opportunity offered, to labor more or less in the word and doctrine, in the church mostly at the Lebanon congregation. And after resuming law practice, and while so engaged, he has never sought or received any pecuniary compensation for his labors in the church services. In religion, he has studiously avoided being “sensational,” and, though some of his sermons have been published in the religious publications, and highly commended, they were, by his request, published anonymously; and so, also, most of his poetic and literary productions have been published anonymously; because he was careful to avoid notoriety. From 1843 to the present time he has been a resident of Boone County, Indiana, except about two years, from 1883 to 1885, he resided in the state of Iowa. He is emphatically a self-made man. His life has been one of great labor – constant and incessant industry; as an indefatigable student, his reading has been extensive and varied. In jurisprudence, in the sciences, in theology, in history, in the classics, in poetry, his reading has been incalculable. It seems that to study and to think was to him as natural as to breathe. Idleness found no place with him. In the judicial forum, in the halls of legislation, in the church, he has been unobtrusive, carefully avoiding attracting attention, and, as far as practicable, seeking no public notoriety, but carefully seeking to be unknown. The most important political act of his life remained unknown for twenty years after its accomplishment, except to a few confidential friends who were enjoined to secrecy. The ruling purpose and aim of his life seems to have been to acquire knowledge, and to use it for the welfare of others, rather than in the acquisition of property or public fame. To secure and promote the equal civil and religious rights of humanity, with him, has been a ruling motive, as his labors fully prove. Beginning life, he had to rely on his own efforts solely; and, through life, he has relied solely on his own industry and economy for a support. If his energies and industry had been directed in the acquisition of property, he could undoubtedly have been financially a man of wealth; but the acquisition of property was a subordinate and secondary consideration with him. He preferred knowledge to dollars. He had, however, in the latter years of his busy life, acquired a sufficient property for a competency; but during the last five years, through sickness, and on account of an unfortunate investment of all the property he had in real estate in Kansas, he lost it all; but in the meantime, having regained his health, he is again able to labor. Though now in his seventieth year, he is almost as active, physically, as a young man, and, mentally, seems to be as vigorous as at the age of forty, thus evincing that through life he has lived in conformity to the laws of health.
 

Source Citation: Boone County Biographies [database online] Boone County INGenWeb. 2007. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~inboone> Original data: Harden & Spahr. "Early Life and Times in Boone County, Indiana." Lebanon, Indiana. May, 1887, pp. 335-344.
Transcribed by: Julie S. Townsend - June 29, 2007

[2nd biography follows]

HON. STEPHEN NEAL, Lebanon.

John Neal, the father of this gentleman, was a native of Fairfax County, Va. He moved to Pittsylvania County. There he married Priscilla Craddock, who bore him five sons and five daughters, the subject of this sketch being the seventh child. About the year 1820, the father emigrated with his family to Bath County, Ky. He was a farmer, and his children were trained in that pursuit until the attained ages sufficiently matured to choose their own vocations. The subject of this sketch was born in Pittsylvania County, Va., June 11, 1817, and moved with his father's family to Kentucky when three years of age. Living remote from any town or village, his educational privileges were limited to a few months, sufficient only to enable him to read. When he had reached his fifteenth year, his mother died, and in the following year his father gave him the privilege of choosing a profession for himself. He continued to labor on the farm two years longer, when, at the age of eighteen years, he began attending a country school, paying his expenses by his earnings. After attending this school about one year, he entered the academy at Moorefield, Ky., then under the care of Henry T. Trimble, a graduate of Transylvania University and an educator of acknowledged excellence.

It was at this academy that Mr. Neal acquired a knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and laid the foundation for his subsequent professional and literary attainments. He is essentially a "self-made" man, and is indebted, mainly, to his own exertions, and indomitable energy for his success in life. His mind is naturally studious and contemplative and he seems actuated by a desire to grasp all possible knowledge; hence, his studies have been extended and various, and, being blessed with a vigorous constitution, he has met with few impediments in the pursuit of knowledge, excepting poverty. Prof. 0. S. Fowler, of New York, delineates his characteristics in the following words: "Your constitution is first best. You axe the toughest, hardiest and most enduring of men; can wear through what would break down ninety-nine men out of every hundred. Such ability to learn and accomplish does not often come under my hands. You do not know how much you can do if you simply observe the health conditions. Your functions work easily, like a machine well lubricated, so that you spend but little energy—that is, all work easily, right up to the very mark. Your proclivities run altogether in the line of intellect; they also run strongly in the line of moral. Hence, you might, and, perhaps, should, have been a minister, though you are not now as faithful to creeds as you once were; for you are doing your own thinking; yet the religious sentiment grows. You are a natural theologian, but yon love religion discussed from the natural standpoint quite as well as from the biblical. Would make a good criminal lawyer, for you would do your best to mitigate the punishment of your client. You have an excellent talent for the practice of law, and are better adapted to that vocation than any other. Are extremely stable when your mind is made up, but are wanting in self-esteem."

This was written by Prof. Fowler in 1856, and all who are acquainted with Mr. Neal will recognize it as a true description of his characteristics. At the same time, Prof. F., said: "You are a natural scholar, and capable of excelling in all the natural sciences. You are uncommonly well informed, and have one of the best memories that have come under my hands." Such have been the tendencies of his mind; and what has been said of him has been illustrated by his daily life.

He quitted school in his twenty-second year, and soon thereafter engaged as a school-teacher; but, while instructing others, did not neglect the culture of his own mind, and was at all times a more diligent student than any of his pupils. During his labors in this capacity, in the year 1839, he married Miss Frances Ann Atkinson, in Nicholas County, Ky. Unwilling to accept school teaching as a life-time pursuit, he resolved to enter upon the study of law; but, as his means were limited, continued to teach for a time, improving his leisure time in the study of his chosen profession, reciting occasionally to his preceptor. In the spring of 1841, he removed to Madison, Ind., where he studied law in the office of Hon. Joseph G. Marshall, returning to Carlisle, Ky., in the same year. There he passed an examination, conducted by Judge Reed, of Maysville, and Judge Simpson, of Mount Sterling, Ky., and by them was licensed to practice in all the courts of that State. He was list admitted to the bar at Carlisle, Ky.

During his sojourn in Indiana, he formed the purpose of emigrating to this State, and in the year 1843 located at the town of Lebanon, in Boone County; and, although he has traveled over a number of other Western States, this has been his residence since that date. In 1846 and 1847, he was chosen to represent his county in the State Legislature. In 1851, his wife died, and, six years later, he was a second time married, choosing for his companion Miss Clara, daughter of Charles Davis, Esq., of this county. During his practice, he has gained as much professional distinction, perhaps, as any member of the bar of Boone County, and has always possessed the warmest friendship of his contemporaries.

Source Citation: Boone County Biographies [database online] Boone County INGenWeb. 2008. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~inboone> Original data: "Combination Atlas Map of Boone County Indiana," Kingman Brothers, 1878, p 15.

Transcribed by: T. Stover - October 13, 2008