Lake-Huntington County IN Archives Biographies.....Ibach, Benjamin F. 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 26, 2006, 6:24 pm

Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

BENJAMIN F. IBACH.

    Benjamin F. Ibach, lawyer of Hammond, with offices in the Hammond building,
has been prominent in practice at the bar of Indiana for the past forty years.
He has gained an enviable reputation as pleader and counsel, but has also gone
afield into politics and public life, and one of the most important state
charitable institutions owes its organization and high efficiency to his sincere
and intelligent efforts. Before entering the law he had made a great success in
the teaching profession, and he performed noteworthy service in this line in
both Pennsylvania and Indiana. Mr. Ibach is a man of broad practical and
scholastic attainments, devoted to his main work in life and also interested in
world and community affairs, and has the humanly sympathetic instincts which are
the marks of the well rounded and large character.

    Mr. Ibach was born in Cherrington, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, January 31,
1834, so that he has now passed the limit of life set by the Psalmist, but is
still able to perform a useful part in life for some years to come. He is a son
of Charles and Elizabeth (Hine) Ibach, and is the only one living of the three
sons and two daughters born to those parents. His father was born at Reimscheid,
near Dusseldorf, Germany, and was a manufacturer of iron kitchen utensils, as
was also his father. He was brought to America in 1799, when six years old, the
family locating in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and there he was reared and in
that state lived the rest of his life. He died in Cherrington, Pennsylvania, in
August, 1833, before his son Benjamin was born. He and his wife were both
Lutherans in faith. His wife was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, and
survived him until 1881, being then eighty-two years old. Her father, John Hine,
was a life-long resident of Pennsylvania, dying at Philadelphia when nearly
seventy years old. He was a farmer until he retired late in life to Philadelphia.

    Mr. Benjamin F. Ibach was reared on a farm in Pennsylvania. He attended one
of the first public schools established in the state. At the age of sixteen he
was apprenticed to Emanuel Schaeffer, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and learned
the saddle, harness, collar and trunk-making business. After completing his
apprenticeship he worked at his trade long enough to earn money with which to
attend the Strasburg Academy. After a term or so in that institution he taught
in the public schools of Lancaster county, and then, became principal of the
Strasburg Academy, which position he held for several years. While principal he
and James P. Wickersham and another gentleman were appointed a committee at a
teachers' county convention to organize a normal school. They organized and set
going such a school at Millersville, with Mr. Wickersham as president, and out
of this institution grew the State Normal School at Millersburg. After leaving
the Strasburg Academy Mr. Ibach for several years was superintendent of the
public schools of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and in 1862 became superintendent of
the public schools of Huntington, Indiana.

    While engaged in school work both in Pennsylvania and in Huntington Mr.
Ibach was reading law, one of his preceptors being W. T. Phail, of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, and in November, 1864, he was admitted to the bar at Huntington.
He began practice in that city at once. He was elected prosecuting attorney for
several terms, and was also judge of the common pleas court for a time. He held
the office of city attorney of Huntington for seventeen years. As a matter of
recreation principally he had devoted some study to feeble-minded children, and
when the legislature passed an act for the organization of a school to care for
such children, Governor Williams appointed Mr. Ibach as one of the trustees.
After the completion of a suitable building for the purposes, the governor
induced him to resign his place as trustee on condition that the board of
trustees should elect him superintendent of the institution, which was done. He
organized the school, placed it on a good business basis, and during his two
years' management the asylum attracted national attention to its efficiency and
was visited by superintendents from various states for the purpose of noting its
methods of improving this class of children.

    After resigning this important work he resumed legal practice at Huntington,
where he remained until 1895, in which year he came to Hammond, and has
continued his successful legal career in this city to the present writing. In
1886 he was elected to the legislature for the counties of Huntington and Allen,
being a member of the memorable assembly of 1887, during which he voted for
David Turpie for United States senator. His political allegiance was given to
the Democratic party until after Cleveland's first election, and from that time
until 1896 he was in alignment with the Republicans. His views as to money
caused him to swing with the silver Republicans, and since then most of his
influence has been on the side of Democracy. He is a member of the Methodist
church, and fraternally is affiliated with Garfield Lodge No. 569, F. & A. M.,
at Hammond.

    January 29, 1856, Mr. Ibach married Miss Kate E. Warfel, whose parents died
when she was an infant, and she was taken and reared as the daughter of B. B.
Gonder. Three children were born of this marriage, Charles L., Preston G. and
Joseph G. Charles L. was a clerk in Indianapolis at the time of his death; his
wife was Lizzie Chambers, of Camden, New Jersey, who is also now deceased.
Preston G. is a successful physician in Hammond; he married Miss Nellie Huntoon.
Joseph G. is an attorney in Hammond; he married Miss Minnie Friedley, and they
have three children, Mary, Anna and Joseph. Mrs. Kate Ibach died in February,
1864, when twenty-nine years old. She was a member of the Methodist church.

    In May, 1876, Mr. Ibach married Miss Martha Wilson, a daughter of Samuel
Wilson. She died in October, 1891, at the age of sixty-three, having been a
faithful member of the Methodist church. There are no children living of that
union. On July 22, 1903, Mr. Ibach married for his present wife Mrs. Amanda L.
Rounds, a widow.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904


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