James Franklin Hanly

J. Frank Hanly was born near St. Joseph, Illinois on 4 April 1863; he was killed near Dennison, Ohio on 1 August 1920, when the car he was driving was struck by a train.
     Hanly is noted for organizing the “Flying Squadron” of Prohibition campaigners which was active during the 1916 presidential campaign.  He lectured extensively on the evils of drink before and after that campaign.
     He attended Eastern Illinois University and taught school for 8 years before entering law school.  Moving to Indiana in 1889, he was elected to the Indiana Senate, to Congress, and to the governorship of Indiana.  Later, he founded a newspaper, the Indianapolis Commercial, and was its editor.

-- Gammon, 2007, pp.83-84

“J. Frank Hanly was born in a log cabin in Champaign County, Illinois, April 4, 1863.  He received most of his earlier education at his mother’s knee, under her tutorship.  He was able to attend school but little, scarcely a year all told.  At 13 years of age, he started out to make his way in the world as a hired hand on a farm.  While thus engaged he acquired sufficient knowledge of the common branches to obtain a license as a teacher of the public schools of Warren County in 1881, having come to the State of Indiana two years before.  Later he attended a course of six weeks in the Eastern Illinois Normal School, at Danville, Illinois.
     He continued to teach in the public schools of Indiana and Illinois until 1889, when he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law at Williamsport, Indiana.  In 1890 he was nominated and elected State Senator, and in 1884 to the Congress of the United States.  In 1898 he was narrowly defeated in the Republican legislative caucus for United States Senator…..  In 1904 he was elected Governor of Indiana over Hon. John W. Kern by a plurality of nearly 85,000, a plurality at that time without precedent in Indiana…..
     In 1908, while serving as Governor, he was elected to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church….. He was made Chairman of the General Committee on Temperance and prepared the Church’s utterance on that subject.  In 1912 he was re-elected a delegate to the General Conference … and again served as Chairman of the General Temperance Committee, and again prepared the utterance of the Church on this subject.
     In 1900 he was Chairman of the Republican State Convention, and in 1912 was a delegate to the Republican National Convention…..”

Speeches of the Flying Squadron

An unidentified newspaper clipping gives additional information:

Dennison, Ohio, Aug. 2 -- J. Frank Hanly, former governor of Indiana and candidate for president on the Prohibition ticket in 1916, and Dr. and Mrs. C.M. Baker of Kilgore, Ohio, were killed six miles from here Sunday when a Pennsylvania freight rain struck the automobile in which the party was driving to Kilgore.
     All three suffered fractured skulls and crushed bodies and neither regained consciousness after being brought to a local hospital.
     Dr. and Mrs. Baker met Mr. Hanly in Dennison at 6:45 Sunday morning and were driving him to their home in Kilgore, 20 miles from here.  
     The Baker automobile was driven across the Pennsylvania tracks back of one freight train and directly in front of another.  The automobile was struck squarely.
     All three of the injured were rushed to the Twin City Hospital, where Governor Hanly and the Bakers died later.
     Mr. Hanley was en route to Carrollton, where he was to have delivered an address.  He had intended spending the day with the Bakers at their home in Kilgore.
     The chief of police here has notified relatives of Mr. Hanly in Indianapolis, and it is expected that the body will be sent there.

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