Hallack  Floyd


The  Indianapolis  Star
Sunday September 11, 1910
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BISHOP  FLOYD  HAS  MANY  ATTAINMENTS
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Record of Dublin, Indiana Minister
Gives Insight Into Unusually Active Life
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CHURCHMAN  FIRST  OF  ALL
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Has However Been Prominent In Legislative Halls
and In Various Commercial Lines
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(Dublin, Indiana September 10—Special)
          Perhaps one of the most celebrated men of eastern Indiana is Bishop Hallack Floyd, D.D., a resident of Dublin. 
Married fifty-two and a half years, inventor, manufacturer, expounder of the gospel for more than half a century, presiding elder for twelve years, bishop for sixteen years, editor, president of a college, legislator and namesake of more than one hundred and fifty children, is in brief, the remarkable biography of Bishop Floyd.  His remarkable fight for a temperance law in the State Assembly is a matter of history.
          To have become the possessor of any one of these distinctions many a man has striven his utmost, perhaps spent a lifetime, only to have known bitter disappointment. But with all of his achievements to meet Bishop Floyd on the street of the quaint old town that has claimed this venerable man for two score and twelve years, one never suspects him to be the proprietor of this string of attributes so commonplace is his manner and so lightly does he bear his achievements.
ACTIVE  AS  CIRCUIT  RIDER
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          Bishop Floyd was born in what is known as Flat Rock Cave in Shelby county near Hope, seventy-one years ago.  At the age of 19 he became affiliated with the United Brethren Church and was appointed to the Dublin Circuit, with twelve charges, which he filed every three weeks, riding horse back to reach them.  After serving as presiding elder of three districts for ten years, the Rev. Mr. Floyd was selected for president of the Hartsville, Indiana United Brethren College.  When a division came in the United Brethren organization in 1889 the Rev. Floyd was elected bishop of the radical branch for the southwestern district, where he served for two years, and consecutively thereafter in the same high office of the eastern district for two years, northwestern district four years, southwestern district four years and in the northwestern district again for four years.  He was succeeded by Bishop Hoskins.
          Six years after the first land rush was made into Oklahoma the bishop organized many mission conferences in that country for the benefit of the Indians.
          But prior to this long and honorable record in the bishoprie of his church, the Rev. Mr. Floyd from 1886 until 1889 was the publishing agent and associate editor of the Christian Conservator, then published at Dayton, Ohio.  After being relieved from the bishoprie, he again became the presiding elder for two years.  More than half a century of peaceful married life has been one of the blessings of the bishop’s career.  He was married when very young to  Miss Mary Elizabeth Peeks, whose father, brother and brother-in-law were all Methodist ministers.  George Floyd, a son of the bishop, is also a Methodist minister, now at Everton, Indiana.
          There was one particularly prominent epoch in the eventful course of Bishop Floyd’s career, when in 1881 he entered the political arena and was elected to the Legislature from Wayne County.  Ever a faithful worker in the cause of temperance, the Rev. Mr. Floyd received one favorable opportunity to strike into the very heart of the evil.  An amendment to the constitution had been submitted containing a provision for state wide prohibition, and the Democrats of the House were about to defeat it by agitating the theory that it would disrupt the Democratic party in the state.  The Rev. Mr. Floyd in a notable speech declared he has been sent to the Legislature for the purpose of promulgating laws for the benefit of his constituents, and that he represented a county that was, at that time, favorable to the amendment.
          As a climax to his speech, the Rev. Mr. Floyd said  "if we refuse to grant expression in the opinions of the voters who have sent us here we are taking from them their rights of citizenship."  Then he called on all those present sent to the Legislature for the purpose of representing the people, to rise and follow him out of the House.  He was followed by nearly half of the body of lawmakers and this caucus for the day was broken up.  A caucus was again rallied for the following night and the amendment was passed by the House and Senate.
Contributed by Barb Huff

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