This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Fortune, Howell, Swango, Sparks, Maison, Myer,
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Ek.2ADE/3135
Message Board Post:
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the
insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just
thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE:
I don’t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no
index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it.
Typed by Lora Radiches:
Other surnames mentioned in the biography of HON. CHARLES MONROE FORTUNE are, Fortune,
Howell, Swango, Sparks, Maison, Myer,
HON. CHARLES MONROE FORTUNE has been a member of the Terre Haute bar since 1901. Of this
period he devoted ten years to service on the bench, and it is doubtful if any Indiana
judge in a similar length of time had more important responsibilities and did more for the
general purification of politics and political conditions. Judge Fortune was the man of
the hour in that turmoil of investigations and trials centering at Terre Haute, and which
for a time made that city the focus of national attention. Judge Fortune has lived all his
life in the vicinity of Terre Haute. He was born on a farm in Vigo County, November 25,
1870, son of Henry Cole and Frances (Howell) Fortune, and grandson of Zachariah Fortune.
Henry Cole Fortune was born in old Virginia, near Richmond, in 1831, and his wife was born
in Meigs County, Ohio, in 1838. Henry Cole Fortune came to Western Indiana before
the Civil war, and during the war operated a ferry on the Wabash River, at Darwin,
Illi!
nois. In 1869 he bought the farm on which his son, Judge Fortune, was born. He
died in Clark County, Illinois, in July, 1883, and his wife on February 28, 1907.
Judge Fortune, the youngest of seven sons, was twelve years of age when his father died.
As a youth he became acquainted with hardship and with manual toil, had to do his own
thinking and at an early age was earning his living. When he left home, at the age of
sixteen, he worked as a factory hand at Terre Haute. He learned the watchmakers trade and
after the end of his day’s work spent the evenings studying law. In 1898 he entered the
law office of Cox & Davis at Terre Haute, and in 1901 passed his bar examination. For
three years he was associated in practice with Judge James H. Swango. He entered politics
as a Democrat in a city, which for years had been one of the Republican strongholds of the
state. His election to the office of city judge in 1905 was therefore an overturning of
precedent!
s, constituting one of the biggest surprises in local politics for yea
rs. He became city judge in January, 1906, serving thirty-three months, when he resigned
to become circuit judge of the Forty-third Judicial Circuit. As city judge he presided
over one of the outstanding cases in the legal annals of the city. This was the trial of
the case brought by the City of Terre Haute against the Terre Haute, Indiana & Eastern
Railroad. Some of the ablest local lawyers appeared on both sides and these were recruited
by legal talent from Chicago. Judge Fortune in his decision held for the traction company.
The case was then appealed to the Circuit Court, and in the meantime Judge Fortune had
been elevated to that tribunal, and consequently the ease was assigned to his docket he
appointed a substitute judge, who, however, affirmed Judge Fortune’s ruling in the lower
court. It was as a Democrat that Judge Fortune was elected a judge of the Forty-third
Judicial Circuit, receiving the largest majority ever given a circuit judge in the
district up u!
ntil that year. He was on the circuit bench six years. As judge of the criminal division
of the court he was the first judge in the state to render a decision in a double murder
case, applying the death penalty by electrocution. It was the last electrocution from Vigo
County. While on the circuit bench he handled on the average of 1,500 cases annually, and
of all that volume of decisions only five were appealed and only one reversed by the
higher courts. As judge of the Circuit Court he had the chief responsibility and accepted
it in full measure in 1914 in directing the power of the courts in the investigation and
exposure of the crooked politicians, applying the provisions of the corrupt practice law
which had been enacted by the Legislature in 1913, and as a result of Judge Fortune’s
vigorous assertion of the dignity and strength of the law 119 politicians from Vigo County
were sentenced for varying lengths of time. These trials had still another effect beyond
th!
e cure of some long standing political crookedness in this section of
Indiana. Largely on the basis of the facts brought out in these trials before Judge
Fortune, United States Senator John W. Kern sponsored and brought to enactment the Federal
corrupt practice act, which is now a part of the Federal statutes. Retiring from the bench
in 1914, Judge Fortune has given his full time to his general law practice. He is a member
of the Vigo County, Indiana State and American Bar Associations, is a member of the St.
Joseph’s Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus. He has always been a great lover of
outdoor sports including fishing and trap shooting. As a Democrat in political faith judge
Fortune has been active and an interested worker in all political campaigns. Judge
Fortune married, March 18, 1897, Miss Myrtle L. Sparks, who died in the same year. She was
well known in Terre Haute literary circles. On July 12, 1911, he married Gertrude Maison,
daughter of A. W. and Caroline (Myer) Maison.