was born November 15, 1835, near Economy, in Wayne County, Ind. At the age of three years, he was left an orphan by the death of his parents, and was placed in the service of a man who subsequently removed to Marshall County, Ind., where young Adamson remained until eighteen years of age, helping to clear a large farm. He enjoyed but limited opportunities for acquiring an education, attending the country school for two months in the winter, spending his Sundays, when he could steal out, in fishing in the streams and shooting birds, being joined in his pastimes by the young Indians. At the age of eighteen, he returned to his native place, and began to work for Dr. Carver, receiving $10 per month. He afterward took a farm "on shares," and was thus engaged three years. During this time he accumulated some money, and was married to Miss Sarah J. Hammer. Shortly afterward he removed to Jefferson County, Iowa, and, after a residence of two years in that county, went to Southern Kansas. During the summer of 1860 it failed to rain, and, as starvation seemed to stare his family in the face, he returned to Iowa. In the spring of 1863, he returned to Wayne County, Ind., and was engaged at farming and stock-raising until 1865. In October of that year, with J. S. Petty and Jonathan P. Adamson, he bought a stock of groceries and engaged in the retail trade at Muncie. About a year later he sold his interest in that store, and with his uncle (under the firm name of B. R. Adamson & Co.), started another store in a frame building near the post office. This relation continued for about eight years, when Mr. Adamson purchased the interest of his uncle and associated Mr. J. A. Goddard with him as partner. He built the "Red Front,"" on Walnut street, and soon afterward embarked in the whole-sale trade in addition to his retail grocery.

Mr. Adamson has worked his way from the ranks of poverty to an independent position in life, and is entitled to a place among the selfmade men of this community. His dealings with the world have ever been of an honorable nature, and he is highly regarded and universally esteemed as a useful and worthy citizen. (Page 208)

GEN. THOMAS J. BRADY.

Elsewhere in this volume appears a history of the life of John Brady, a pioneer and prominent citizen of Delaware County. In our Democratic country we have come to scoff at the claims of "blood" as a relic of monarchical instiutions; yet while we reprobate the custom (in some localities so prevalent) of relying for recognition and superiority upon the records and achievements of ancestors, unsustained by personal ability in the claimants themselves, we maintain that there is a subtle potency in "stock" in the higher as well as in the lower animal. The descendants of parents of pure minds, authors of their own fortunes, and exemplars of noble lives, will inherit their characteristics, and, in a measure, live ever the lives of the parents; or, beginning where the latter left off rise to still greater eminence and accomplish nobler ends. In support of our theory, the Brady family of Muncie is a case in point. They have been known to this community for years as wise judges and legislators, able journalists, and gallant, brave sohliers, while as private citizens they have ever been highly esteemed. Not one of their number is an exception to this rule, while one has outstripped them all, and gained for himself a record that is an inseparable part of the history of the late rebellion and of the United States Post Office Department. It is he whose life is briefly set forth in this biography.

Thomas J., the son of Hon. John Brady, was born at Muncie, Delaware Co., Ind., February 12, 1840. He was educated at the Delaware County Seminary, and at Asbury University, Greencastle, Ind. His mind was bent upon the study of law, and, after graduating, he entered the law office of Hon. Thomas J. Sample, at Muncie, as a student. During the winter of 1858-59, he served in the capacity of Clerk to the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate, of which his fellow townsman, Hon. Walter March, was then Chairman. After being admitted to the bar, he removed to Bethany, Mo., and formed a partnership with Hon. J. D. Heaston, with whom he continued to practice for about a year. He then returned to Muncie, and, in 1860, served as a census enmnerator in Delaware County. In the same year he was appointed Principal of the Washington School Building at Muncie, serving during that winter. Whether under other circumstances, his future career would have been that of the lawyer or the public educator, we can never know; but just at the close of his brief experience in the latter capacity, a field opened before him in which he was to enact the most stirring part in his life. Brother had risen against brother, and one section of our nation had defied the authority of the bond that made us a Union of States. The red hand of rebellion was over us, and President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to enlist in the preservation of our national integrity. In response to this call, Gen. Brady raised the first company that went from Delaware County, in April, 1861. This company was at first assigned to a provisonal regiment organized by Gev. Morton, with Gen. Lew Wallace in command, intending to dispatch it to Washington to assist in averting the danger that menaced the national captal. This idea was subsequently adandoned, and the company from Delaware County became Company C, of the Eighth Indiana Infantry--three months' service. They served under Gens. McClellan and Rosecrans in West Virginia, participating in all the important engagement, and at the battle of Rich Mountain this regiment captured a rebel battery. At the expiration of its term of enlistment the Eighth was re-organized as a three years' regiment, and Brady's company became Company A. The regiment was then assigned to the department of the Missouri, and served under Gen. Fremont, and subsequently under Gen. Curtis. Shortly after the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark., Capt. Brady became Major of the regiment by promotion, in recognition of his soldiery conduct in the field. The regiment then moved rapidly from place to place in Arkansas and Missouri, and was afterward sent to Mississippi, where it was attached to Gen. McClernand's corps. Maj. Brady, under orders of his division commander, Gen. Carr took four picked companies of the Eighth as a skirmish line, to protect the landing division at Grand_Gulf; but as they were unable to compete successfully with the rebel batteries, the landing at, this point was abandoned, and the division afterward landed at Bruinsburg, where Maj. Brady and his four selected companies were the first to reach the bluffs. At the battle of Fort Gibson, he led his men in a fierce outslaught, and his horse was shot under him, but he seemed to bear a charmed life, and lived to lead them in many subsequent engagements. He participated in the Black River and Champion Hills campaigns under Gen. Grant, and was also actively engaged during the siege of Vicksburg. His conduct was so conspicuously gallant as to elicit the warmest commendations of both Gens. Carr and Benton. On the 19th of September, 1863, he was made the recipient of a Colonel's commission by Gov. Morton, to whose ears had frequently come reports of the meritorious services of the young officer. The regiment to whose colonelcy he had been promoted was the One Hundred and Seventeenth Indiana Infantry, six months' troops. With his new command he was ordered to East Tennessee, and was finally located at Bean's Station. During the attack of Longstreet on the forces under Gen. Haskell, the One Hundred and Seventeenth was stationed at Clinch Mountain Gap,three miles from Bean's Station. It was here that Col. Brady accomplished what has been pronounced one of the most daring and brilliant achievements of the campaign in East Tennessee. It was his purpose to join the forces under Gen. Wilcox, then stationed at no great distance from him on the mountain. There were two roads by which this end could be accomplished, but Longstreet anticipated his movement and sent troops along both roads to contest his passage. His command was thus intercepted and cut off from communication with their friends, and the hearts of the latter sank as they heard the news; for to them a surrender seemed the only way out of the difficulty. But they had misjudged the gallant commander of the One Hundred and Seventeenth! Surrender was no part of his programme. Retreat looked disastrous, too; but he chose it as the least of two evils. Ordering that all baggage, camp utensils, etc., be immediately destroyed, he led his men through dangerous bypaths and down precipices that would apall the heart of an Alpine tourist, to a place of safety, while the entire Union army applauded as they heard of his wonderful feat.

The term of enlistment of the One Hundred and Seventeenth expired in 1864, and, on the 10th of October of that year, he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Fortieth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry. During the summer months of that year, he had raised fully one-half of this regiment by his own efforts. With his new regiment he went first to Nashville, thence to Murfreesboro, Tenn., and finally to garrison duty at Fort Rosecrans, where he remained during thc siege of Nashville. He participated with his command in all the engagements in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, and afterward moved to Columbia, Tenn., where the command formed a part of the Third Brigade, First Division, Twenty-third Army Corps, under the command of Gen. Cox. On the 16th of January, 1865, the command embarked for Cincinnati, Ohio, with Washington City as its objective point, and, on the 3d of February following, embarked at Alexandria, Va., to join the expedition against Fort Fisher, N.C. It took part in the storming of Fort Anderson, where the One Humdred and Fortieth displayed great gallantry, and captured the colors that waved over the rebel battery. Subsequently it was engaged in the action at Town Creek Bridge, and two companies of the One Hundred and Fortieth were the first who entered the intrenchments of the enemy. The term of enlistment of this regiment having expired, it was mustered out of service at Washington July 11, 1865, and received its final payment and discharge at Indianapolis ten days later; and, within a short time thereafter, Col. Brady was honored with promotion by Brevet to the rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers, in recognition of his distinguished services to the Union cause.

During the war (in the winter of 1863-64), he returned to Muncie and was united in marriage to Miss Emeline, daughter of Adam Wolfe, Esq., a prominent citizen of this place, on the 10th day of May, 1864, expecting when war's grim labor should no longer hold him, to become again a private citizen; but his public life, as subsequent circumstances revealed, had but just begun. After the close of his army life, he resumed the practice of his profession, in which he was engaged for a brief period at Muncie, in partnership with Hon. A. C. Mellett. In 1868, he purchased the Muncie Times, which, under his superior management, soon became the leading Republican organ of this part of the State. He enlarged the paper and fitted up the establishment with new steam presses. In 1870, he was appointed by President Grant to the Consulate of the Island of St. Thomas, West Indies, and on this account severed his connection with the Times, selling one-half of his interest in the paper to his former partner, Mr. Mellett, and about a year later transferred to him the other half. In 1874, he obtained leave of absence for one year from the duties of his office as Consul, and, while at Muncie during that vacation, was appointed Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. He resigned his position as Consul on the 1st day of July, 1875, and was soon after appointed Supervisor of Internal Revenue for the States of Ohio and Indiana. That particular period was a stormy one in the history of the United States Internal Revenue Department. Stupendous frauds, it was alleged, had been committed at Cincinnati and other points in the district over which he was Supervisor; and, although the most searching investigation failed to reveal to him any truth in the rumors thus set afloat, there was a crowd of self constituted revenue experts (?) who insisted that the rumors were true, and by their persistent barking, gained the credulity of some influential men. Their own personal ends were in the balance, and they did not hesitate to attack Gen. Brady's private character. A President has been inaugurated, and his administration has passed to "the things that were" since these allegations were first made, and Gen. Brady's character has been vindicated by time and facts, while not even an opposition Congress has been able to unearth a fragment of evidence of fraud at that point. He was transferred from this district to the one embracing the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, at the special request of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and here manifested whether or no he would connive at frauds against the Government, by running down illicit distilleries and bringing their proprietors to justice. It, was by his efforts that the New Orleans accomplices of the great St. Louis whisky fraud were brought to trial, and their ill-gotten gains taken from them and restored to the treasury of the United States. Soon after this, Gen. Brady returned home to attend to some affairs of his own that could not be longer neglected, and, on the 20th of July, 1876, Gen. Grant tendered him the position of Second Assistant Postmaster General, which he accepted, and has ever since filled with eminent ability. He took no one's plan as a guide, nor did he foreshadow any particular policy which he meant to pursue; but no sooner had he been thoroughly inducted into the duties of his new office than the entire mail service of the United States felt the power of the hand that guided it; and like vultures waiting for their prey, his administration was assailed by his enemies, who cried "fraud," "gigantic jobs," etc. The particular sin that excited their horror was his action in regard to what is known as the "Star" mail service, which embraces all mail routes not included in the railroad or steamboat service. Emigrants from the older States of the East, who had relinquished the comforts of their former homes, and had settled in the Territories of the West, Northwest and Southwest, were the ones who felt most keenly the need of better mail facilities, and it was in their behalf that Gen. Brady's sympathy was enlisted, and for their sakes that he determined to extend the "Star" service and increase its efficiency. He accordingly issued orders that brought about the end aimed at, believing that Congress would sustain and sanction his action at its next session. Practically a deficiency had been created in the appropriation for the postal service by his action, and he sent in a report to Congress at its next session, explaining his action at length, and asking for an appropriation to cover the deficiency. Then arose a storm in both branches of our National Legislature, which is well described by a writer in the Washington National Free Press, in the following words: "A few disgruntled men in both Houses of Congress, without giving heed to reason or explanations, chose to assume that the law had been violated. These men (belonging to both parties), made a terrific onslaught on Gen. Brady. In the House the battle raged for days. The three Joes--Blackburn, Hawley and Cannon--were especially fierce in their denunciation of Gen. Brady and his policy. Time after time they returned to the charge, and endeavored by sheer weight of numbers to overwhehn the object of their wrath. But, if they were relentless in their onslaught, they were as gallantly met. The friends of a liberal postal system rallied around Gen. Brady, and thoroughly vindicated him and his policy. Men who understood all the facts, men who comprehended the growing needs of the great West, and men who were opposed to the penny policy of the Forty-Sixth Congress--all these rallied around Gen. Brady, and repelled every assault made upon him. Then his friends dropped the defensive and assumed the offensive, and attacked his foes on their own chosen ground. With argument, ridicule, sarcasm and contempt, they overwhelmed the opposition and carried the appropriation through both Houses of Congress, thus keeping the "Star" service, on the liberal basis upon which Gen. Brady had placed it. Such a sweeping victory for a comparatively young man is unprecedented in Congressional annals."

The Washington Capital says of Gen. Brady: Two officers of the outgoing administration who have special reason to be proud of the record they have made, both by reason of the magnitude of the interests they have championed and the severity of the resistence they have met from an always critical and sometimes hostile Congress, are John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, and Thomas J. Brady, Second Assistant Postmaster General.

In all the other executive departments during this administration, routine has had full and undisturbed sway. But the treasury and the post office have been the scene of enterprise, innovation, and clearly defined original policy, carried to successful result in spite of obstacle and in defiance of opposition.

The attitude of Thomas J. Brady during this administration has not been like that of John Sherman, in anything except the resolution with which he faced his difficulties, the courage with which he accepted his responsibilities, and the success which finally crowned his policy. We mean no disrespect to Judge Key or to Mr. Maynard, when we say that, between the peculiar circumstances of the times in which he wrought, and the peculiar nature of his beaurocratic duties, Thomas J. Brady has been defacto Postmaster General of this administration. In the first place, the Second Assistant Postmaster General, by virtue of the operation of the laws regulating the contract system of the department, is its actual business manager. For the Postmaster General to attempt immediate supervision of the interminable mass of small detail which makes up the business of the department, could have no other result than confusion and impediment. His real responsibility ends, or should end, at satisfactory assurance that the subordinates upon whom the actual work devolves, are competent: since really the efficiency of the department depends upon the executive capacity of the man who has to handle the contract bureau, which is the foundation of all its usefullness. These are the reasons why, when the system of the post office department was challenged last session (1880), by a hostile majority in Congress, the Second Assistant came at once to the front of responsibilty, and had to bear the brunt of the assault. Of all the inquisitions to which the Republican executive has been subjected by the Democratic legislative branch of the Government, since the latter party obtained control of the House, that of last winter upon Thomas J. Brady's management of the postal contract system was prsecuted with the most ability, the greatest zeal, and, we might add, the meanest malignity. There was plenty of material: Brady had assumed responsibilities never before undertaken by a public officer. He had adopted the theory that it was his duty to respond to the public demands, and that it would be the subsequent duty of Congress as a body to audit the bills which he had incurred in complying with the recommendations of Congressmen as individuals.

A Presidential election was impending, and with it great need of what is called party capital. If Sam Randall's Appropriations Committee could gibbet a Republican executive officer of high rank for clearly proved malfeasance, the tocsin of reform could be sounded to distraction. There was the opportunity. Brady had extended the mail service far beyond the pro rata limits of the current appropriation, and had asked Congress to meet the consequent deficiency. The extended service lay for the most part in the unrepresented Territories, so that the interest arising from what is known in Congressional parlance as "my deestrick," was in this struggle reduced to a minimum.

There was therefore no force with which Brady could meet the colmnn of invasion, except the simple merit of his policy, and no sentiment to which he could appeal in justification, except the spirit of national generosity in the Representatives of the States toward the inhabitants of the Territories. A weaker man would have pleaded the subordination of his office, and throw himself upon the protection of the administration; but Brady did nothing of the kind. He met the enemy more than half-way, and fought it out on the enemy's ground. To the charge, that he had taen an extra-legal responsibility he answered: 'Certainly; but I did it because the law, for the time being, was insufficient to meet the necessities of thee public.' To the charge that he was asking personal vindication by Congress, he replied that he was doing nothing of the kind; that all he asked Congress to do was to amend the results of its own lack of foresight. To the charge that his policy was on trial, he replied that his policy was not in question at all; that the thing on trial was the capacity or disposition of Congress to make adequate provision for meeting the requirements of the public, whose growth was not under his control, nor could be measured by the deliberations of a committee of Congress a year in advance.

This was bold doctrine. Sam Randall's Appropriations Committee called it impudent, and on the whole case issue was sqarely joined. The result is historical: Brady won his case entire, and went back to his desk with the flattering testimonial of a majority vote in his favor from his party opponents, without taking his party friends into account at all. The world respects men who stand on their own feet and regulate their own center of gravity. The investigation of last winter gave Brady an introduction to the public, which, rough as were some of its processes, left him, on the whole, with a high reputation for nerve in great undertakings, and courage in great emergencies, as well as capacity to deal with vast masses of business.

"No other official of this Administration has passed such a test- not even John Sherman, though John has had his share of 'investigation.'"

Through all the calumny that has been heaped upon him, Gen. Brady's private character has suffered none in the estimation of the citizens of Muncie. His sacrifices in early manhood for the good of his country, his glorious achievements in the field, and the public honors which his merits have won, all transpire to place him upon a plane too high to be reached or undermined by the detestable would-be destroyer of a fair fame. Here he is known, not only as the public officer, but its the private citizen, and it is in this capacity that his friends like best to think of him. In one of his "Odd Letters," Col. Donn Platt says of him: "To the general public, whose contact with him is purely official, or of a business nature, Gen. Brady is a somewhat angular nmn, intensely practical, reticent in speech, curt in manner, and peremptory in the dispatch of business transactions.

To his familiar acquaintances, who enjoy the hospitality of his home and the society of his leisure -what little leisure he has--he is another sort of man altogether. At home he is a student, fond of his books, with a turn of scentific inquiry and discussion, and a keen judge of art and literature. This is the side of Brady's character which the people of his old home cherish in memory; but it is a side which the conditions of public life in Washington quickly put out of sight."

When the smoke of the battle shall have cleared away, and the bitterness of partisan hatred shall no longer act as a barrier to a clear perception of right and justice; when his administration of the affairs of the post office department shall have been transcribed upon the pages of our national history by a hand not governed by prejudice or selfish motives, and the good results of his innovation shall have been more completely demonstrated by a practical test, his calumniators shall be silenced in the broad light of facts, and the name of Thomas J. Brady will stand boldly out, a benefactor of his time. (Pages 208-210)