The clipping noted below, written by Agnes McCulloch Hanna, was published in an undated, unsourced Bloomington newspaper under a column called “Looking Back.” It was found in a scrapbook compiled by a man named Fred Lockwood. The scrapbook is held by the Monroe County History Center, Bloomington, Indiana. The item below was abbreviated from the original, as noted by the ellipsis, and excludes much of the information pertaining to the home built by Joshua Owen Howe later the property of David H. Maxwell.
According to information from the Rose Hill Cemetery Index, David H. Maxwell was born September 17, 1786, and died May 24, 1854. His burial was in Rose Hill.
…Dr. David Hervey Maxwell had written the constitution of our state with his own hand, and it may be seen to this day in our archives. In 1838 his son, Dr. James D. Maxwell was elected to the Board of Trustees of Indiana University and held this office with the exception of a short period until his death in 1892. In the discharge of his duties as secretary and trustee, he was noted for his fidelity and abiding faith in the ultimate success of the institution.
He helped his college through trial by fire and political controversy and was steadfast to it. He saw it develop to the new and enlarged institution on its new campus. Maxwell Hall is named in honor of David Hervey and James Darwin Maxwell. His service rendered with no financial reward. Miss Juliette Maxwell, youngest of his daughters, offers an annual prize to women students of the university, the James Darwin Maxwell medal, for excellence in scholarship and principals.
In a spacious house [on S. College Avenue, described at length in an earlier MCHC library blog] he and Mrs. Maxwell entertained twice each year the trustees and members of the faculty and their wives at dinner parties. Dr. James Darwin Maxwell was born in 1815 near Hanover, Ind. Of his ten children, three daughters are living—Mrs. Allan B. Philputt of Indianapolis, Miss Juliette Maxwell who resigned recently from the department of physical training at the university, and Miss Fannie Bell Maxwell, formerly an instructor at Ferry Hall, Lake Forest, Ill. Mrs. Grace Philputt Young, his granddaughter, is a member of the Department of Romance Languages of which her husband is the head at Indiana.
This is a family which is tied intimately to our state and its university. The house, which was for many years connected with the town and college, still holds its place as it is now the home of the Burton-Woolery post of the American Legion, many of whose members were graduated from the university, some of whom are attached to the university and all of whom see and take part in its activities. A long life and a happy one, the Howe-Maxwell house has had in Bloomington. Few can belong more closely to the community. –Indianapolis Star
Blog post by Randi Richardson