CUYAHOGA COUNTY—Continued
Page 504
present noble structure immediately arose from its
ashes. The Methodist Conference, in
1830, established a station here, Rev. PLIMPTON holding the charge. In 1833 the First Baptist Society was
organized with twenty-seven members, and erected a church edifice of brick on
the corner of Seneca and Champlain streets, which remains there yet, although
long since abandoned for religious purposes for a more pleasant locality and a
more elegant structure. The pioneer
Roman Catholic church came in 1835 and built a house
of worship in the valley on Columbus street. The same year the Bethel was built on
Water street for the use of sailors; and in 1839 the
Hebrew congregation established their first synagogue, and built soon after a
fine brick edifice on Eagle street.
In less than fifty years all these religious societies, denominations,
churches and synagogues have flourished and multiplied in numbers and increased
in wealth and influence, and all have been blessed with the happiness resulting
from the consciousness that each institution has been guided and instructed by
its respective rector, minister, priest and rabbi, ever earnest and faithful in
his clerical ministrations, and not a few of whom have been pre-eminent for
scholarly attainments and elegance of discourse.
As early as 1786 there was a trading-post at
the mouth of the Cuyahoga river to facilitate the
transshipment of flour and bacon brought overland from Pittsburg, destined
thence by water to the military post at Detroit, being the first lake traffic
at this point. The commercial
marine of the lakes, now surpassing that of the Mediterranean, had its genesis
in the “Griffin,” a vessel of sixty tons, built on the Niagara river above the Falls, by LA SALLE, for exploring service,
and sailed on its mission of discovery August 7, 1678. The first vessel launched at Cleveland
was a sloop of thirty tons, built in 1808 by the famous pioneer, Lorenzo
CARTER, and named the “Zepher.” From the “Griffin” and the
“Zepher” to the year 1887 the lake marine
has developed into the enormous proportion of 3,502 vessels of all
classes–steamers and sail-craft–with a total tonnage of 905,277.57
tons, according to the excellent authority of the editor of the Marine Record, of Cleveland.
For nearly twenty years ferocious wild beasts
of the dense forests in and surrounding Cleveland annoyed and terrified the
inhabitants. Bears entered their
gardens and dwellings even in the daytime, and at
night invaded the barnyards and pigsties, killing and carrying off young
porkers, calves, and sheep; and wolves beset the night traveller
on streets and avenues now lined with costly residences and palatial mansions.
In 1820 a stage line was established between
Cleveland and Columbus, and coaches were run to Norwalk; soon thereafter to
Pittsburg and Buffalo. For thirty
years this system of passenger travel flourished in all gayety, splendor, and
excitement along the several routes, enlivening villages and awakening lone
hamlets.
Cleveland was during that period a noted
centre of the stage lines between the East and the West and South, until that
system of travel was superseded by the railway system, about 1850, when the
blast from the bugle and the crack of the stage-driver’s whip was no more
heard along the turnpike on the high and dry parallel ridges and ancient shores
of Lake Erie.
The first railway charter was that of the
Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, followed soon by the Cleveland and
Pittsburg, Cleveland and Toledo, and the Cleveland and Ashtabula, or Lake
Shore, connecting with the New York Central and New York and Erie. Thus, as early as 1852, a complete line
was in operation from the sea-coast to Chicago, and even to Rock Island, on the
Mississippi river. This last great
modern system of travel and transport had the immediate effect of sweeping from
the chain of lakes, as it had the stages from the land, the line of splendid
side-wheel steamers and floating palaces that for many years had plied between
Buffalo and Chicago, each crowded with hundreds of passengers.
The railroads changed the order of business
at Cleveland, and for a brief season the lake commerce at this port presented a
gloomy aspect, and total ruin of the
Page 505
marine industry was prophesied. Fortunately, however, the Cleveland and
Mahoning Valley railroad was soon completed, extending into the great
coal-fields, and opening up a new territory to trade, and laying the foundation
and stimulating manufacturing enterprises, resulting eventually in the creation
here of an industrial and producing centre now pre-eminent among the cities of
the lakes. Two other railroads
within the last decade have been added to the railway system: the Valley
railroad, along a portion of the line of the Ohio canal, and the Connotton Valley railroad, both leading into the great
southern and eastern coal belt.
THE PERRY
STAUTE, MONUMENT PARK.
With these facilities and the simultaneous
opening up of the vast iron and copper regions of Lake Superior, the wonderful
and almost mysterious alliance of coal and iron and fire along the banks of the
lake and river, within the limits of Cleveland, has resulted in vast iron
furnaces, rolling mills, and many branches incident thereto, such as wire
mills, nuts and bolts, screws, shovels, engines, and machinery, together with
every conceivable branch of manufacturing industry, from the great tube and
exquisitely adjustable mechanism of the Lick telescope to a shingle-nail. Here coal and iron meet, and in their
resulting industries.
The central lowlands and broad meadows on
either side of the wide navigable river for a distance of several miles are the
sites of hundreds of great manufacturing plants, whose lofty smokestacks give
daily and often nightly evidence of perpetual industry, while the broad and
elevated plateaus for five miles distant on both sides are densely covered with
mercantile houses, public buildings, mansions of the millionaires, and the more
modest but goodly homes of 300,000 people.
Cleveland’s municipal existence dates
from 1836, with John W. WILLEY, an eminent lawyer, as its first mayor. At that date the west side of the river
constituted Ohio City, but, in 1854, it was united with Cleveland, and William
B. CASTLE was the first mayor after the union, the population being at the
following census (1860) 44,000. The
city had already been lighted with gas.
The first great public enterprise after the
union was in supplying the city with water pumped from a great distance from
the lake shore to a reservoir on the most elevated land, the height thereof
being artificially increased about a hundred feet,
Page 506
and from thence distributed, and from time to
time since extended until nearly every street, house, and building enjoys the
blessing of pure lake water, bountifully supplied.
In the possession of parks and public grounds
the city is pre-eminently fortunate.
In addition to the central park of ten acres laid out by the original
survey, and since the erection of the statue of Commodore PERRY, in 1860,
called Monumental Park, LAKE VIEW PARK has been created along the sloping bluff
from Seneca street east to Erie street, and is adorned and embellished in the
best style of the landscape-gardener’s art. THE CIRCLE is a finely ornamented
GARFIELD’S
MONUMENT, LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.
ground on Franklin avenue, west side, from which
radiates several streets. It has a
central rock structure in primitive style; moss and vine, covered with water
jets, rivulets, and drinking fountains–a delightful summer evening
resort. WADE PARK came to the city
already laid out and adorned through the munificence of Mr. J. H. WADE, of
electrical fame. It has an area of
some sixty-five acres of ravine and upland level, traversed by a bountiful and
ever-living stream of pure water, fed by the not far distant hills; is shaded
with abundant trees and profuse with native and cultivated shrubbery, and is
almost limitless in its extent of walks and drives.
SOUTH SIDE PARK is a fine, level piece of land,
covered with native trees, but recently purchased by the city, and not yet
developed and beautified to its utmost
Page 507
possibilities.
It is, however, destined to delight the eye and grace the south side of
the municipality.
One hundred years has sufficed to populate a
dozen or more municipal cemeteries, such as Erie, Woodlawn, Monroe, and the
consecrated grounds of the Catholic church, all well
kept.
Modern culture and taste, accompanied by
individual and associated wealth, has largely removed the native dread of
death, inspired by the lonely and neglected “graveyard” of
primitive times, in the establishment independent of municipal authority, and
often remote from cities, of cheerful and ornate cemetery grounds.
LAKE VIEW and RIVERSIDE represent the results
of the wealth, forethought, and taste of J. H. WADE and J. M. CURTISS and their
associates in the two enterprises.
The first of these cities of the dead overlooks the lake and comprises a
tract of upwards of three hundred acres of wooded hill and dale, of oak and
other forest trees. The second
overlooks the broad meadows and the winding river.
It has a little over one hundred acres, with
many richly wooded ravines, brooks, and springs utilized in fountains and
ponds. It has romantic and shady
drives through its numerous dells, aggregating more than five miles, and is one
of the most attractive and beautiful resorts of the city’s rural suburbs.
While hardly two decades have elapsed since
Lake View and Riverside opened their portals, yet the vast number of elaborate
monuments and tombs in every conceivable style of menumental
art from the monoliths of the Pharaohs and the mausoleums of the Caesars to
modern days, indicates the mighty annual increase of the silent inhabitants of
these beautiful cities of the dead.
In pursuance of the terms of annexation
several swing bridges were built over the river, and in 1878 the great arched
VIADUCT of stone and iron was completed, spanning the wide valley from plateau
to plateau, 3,211 feet in length, 68 feet high, and 64 feet wide, and costing
$2,225,000. It has double street
railway tracks, carriage ways, and walks on both sides.
THE BURSH
ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY’S WORKS.
There is not (1888) in process of
construction by the government a harbor of refuge, to enable vessels to enter
the port with safety. The anchorage
room within the enclosure of the extended breakwater is ample for the entire
marine of the lakes, and the water is deep enough to float the largest lake
vessels. Estimated cost $2,000,000.
Among the number of manufacturing industries
it should be remembered that here is the corporation and plant of the STANDARD
OIL COMPANY, whose operations are world-wide, and
whose dealings surpass in millions any other known institution in America or
Europe. Here also is the BRUSH
ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY, with its vast manufacturing plant and machinery, and
the home of the famous inventor.
Page 508
Of the dead, who by their life-deeds and
testamentary provisions are canonized as noble benefactors, and as such held in
reverent and honored memory, allusion must be here made to William and Leonard
CASE, Joseph PERKINS, Henry CHISHOLM, and Amasa
STONE.
Of the many persons of great wealth still
living, of whose noble and generous deeds it would be pleasant to here record,
it would seem invidious to discriminate where space is not adequate to mention
all. Suffice it to say, the
millionaires of Cleveland are recognized as among its liberal public
benefactors.
In addition to its excellent common school
system and academical institutions, there may be now
reckoned among the literary and scientific advantages of Cleveland, the
ADELBERT COLLEGE; the CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE, at the head of which is
Professor John N. STOCKWELL, well known to the savants of Europe as an
Astronomical Mathematician; the WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM,
organized in 1867, by Col. Charles WHITTLESEY, its president from the first
until his death in October, 1886; and Judge Charles C. BALDWIN, its present
president; the KIRTLAND SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE, named in honor of the late
Professor Jared P. KIRTLAND, who in his lifetime was called the “Agassiz of the West;” the Case Library; the Cleveland
Public Library, and three medical colleges. An opera house and five theatres furnish
adequate entertainment.
Eight street railroads furnish ample
facilities for local passenger transport from the centre to any part of the
city, and even into the rural regions beyond its corporate limits.
Hotel accommodations are among the advantages
of the city. There are probably
more than twenty, all good, but of the famous old ones recently enlarged and
refurnished may be noted the Weddell, American, and Forest City; while of the
great modern structures, the Stillman and the Hollenden are unsurpassed.
The summer temperature of Cleveland is
delightful. The fresh cool air from
the lake prevails throughout the heated term, and the evenings and nights are
always pleasantly cool, making the city a delightful refuge from the sultry
heat of the inland cities, and thousands from all parts of the country sojourn
in the beautiful city during the summer.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Cleveland has been strong from the beginning
in its leading minds in every department of utility. A few representative characters are here
brought under notice. First in
order comes Gen. Moses CLEAVELAND, its founder. The name is Saxon, and the family,
before the Norman conquest, occupied an extensive landed estate in Yorkshire
that was marked by open fissures, called by the Saxons as “clefts,”
or “cleves,” hence the name, which has
been variously spelled–Cleffland, Clifland, Cleiveland, Cleveland
and Cleaveland, which is the way General Moses spelled
it, and the place was so spelled until the Cleveland
Advertiser was issued in 1830, when the editor, finding the type of his
headline too large to extend across his page, dropped the first “a”
and made it Cleveland.
All family names in the lapse of time, as is
known to every genealogist, have undergone changes, and some so radical that
many readers hereof would not know his own could he see it as written by his
ancestors in the dim remote. A bit
of humor will do no harm just here, the mention of a hypothetical change of a
name, that of General CORNWALLIS, made by a colored man in the long ago, who
said, “In de American Rebolution, Gin’ral WASHINGTON he shell all de corn ob Gin’ral CORNWALLIS and make Gin’ral
COBWALLIS.”
GENERAL MOSES CLEAVELAND was born in Canterbury,
Conn., in 1754, graduated at Yale College in 1777, studied and practiced law in
his native town. In 1779 he was
appointed by Congress captain of a company of sappers and miners in the army of
the United States. He was
subsequently a member of the Connecticut Legislature and appointed a
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509
brigadier-general in the State militia–a position in that day
deemed as one of distinguished honor.
He was also Grand Master of the Masonic Fraternity of the State. He married Esther CHAMPION in 1794, by whom he had four children.
It is said that when he founded the city he predicted
the time would come when it would have as many people as Old Windham, in
Connecticut, which was then about 1,500.
After laying out the city he returned to Canterbury, where he died in
1806 aged fifty-three years. He was
a large, dignified man, of swarthy complexion, of sedate aspect, and
GENERAL MOSES CLEAVELAND.
often taken for a clergyman. He was very kindly in his nature and of
excellent judgment.
On the 23d of July, 1888, being the anniversary of the
arrival of Gen. CLEAVELAND, a fine bronze statue to his memory was unveiled on
the public square. It had been
erected through the efforts of Mr. Harvey RICE, the venerable president of the
Early Settlers’ Association, who has done so much for educational and
patriotic purposes in a life now prolonged to eighty-nine years.
The work is a circular pedestal of polished granite 7
½ feet high, surmounted by a life-like statue of the general, 7 3/4 feet
high, weighing 1,450 pounds, U. S. standard bronze, cut in one piece,
representing him in the character of a surveyor in the field, with a
Jacob’s staff in his right hand and an old time compass clasped in the
elbow of his left arm. On its base
is the inscription, “General Moses CLEAVELAND, Founder of the City,
1796.”
JARED POTTER KIRTLAND was born in Wallingford, Conn.,
in 1793, and died in Cleveland in 1877, aged eighty-four years. He graduated at the Yale Medical School,
and at the age of thirty emigrated to Poland, Ohio,
where he practiced his profession and, as before, devoted his leisure to
natural science. When a mere youth
at school he had become an expert in the cultivation of fruits and flowers,
made his first attempt of new varieties of fruit, and managed a large
plantation of white mulberry trees for the rearing of sild
worms.
After coming to Ohio he served three terms in the
State Legislature, from 1837 to 1842 was medical professor at Willoughby, in
1837 was assistant on the first goelogical
survey of Ohio and made a report on its zoology. About 1840 he removed to Rockport, just
west of and near Cleveland, and became one of the founders of the Cleveland
Medical College. In the civil war
he was examining surgeon for recruits and devoted his pay to the
Soldiers’ Aid Society. He
made many investigations in many departments of natural
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510
history which were published in scientific journals.
In 1845 he was one of the founders of the Cleveland Academy
of Natural Science, which in 1865 became the Kirtland Society of Natural
History, and to which he gave his rich collection of specimens. He was a man of great learning and
personal magnetism and more than any one of his day was his influence in improving
agriculture and horticulture and diffusing a love of natural history throughout
the entire Northwest.
DR. KIRTLAND.
Writes Col. Chas. WHITTLESEY: “As a naturalist
he was self-educated. Nature had
formed him mentally and physically for that mission. In 1829, while studying the unios or fresh water mussels, he discovered that authors
and teachers of conchology had made nearly double the
number of species which are warrantable.
Names had been given to species to what is only a difference of form,
due to males and females of the same species. This conclusion was announced in “Silliman’s Journal of Science.”
“The fraternity of naturalists in the United
States and Europe were astonished because of the value of the discovery and the
source from whence it came. There
were hundreds and probably thousands of professors who had observed the unios and enjoyed the pleasure of inventing new names for
the varieties. A practicing
physician in the backwoods of Ohio had shattered the entire nomenclature of the
naides.
At the Cincinnati meeting of the American Association in 1852, Professor
KIRTLAND produced specimens of unios of both sexes,
from their conception through all stages to the perfect animal and its
shell. Agassiz
was present and sustained his views and said they were likewise sustained by
the most eminent naturalists of Europe.
It is difficult in a brief paper like this to do justice to the life and
character of a man who lived so long laboring incessantly regardless of
personal comfort, and did so much to extend the dominion of absolute
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knowledge. Like
CUVIER, AGASSIZ and TYNDALL, his work has shown that theory and discussion do
not
settle anything worthy of a place in science, that it is
only those who base their conclusions on observed nature whose reputations
become permanent.”
In person Dr. KIRTLAND was a large man, with a great
heart and lungs and an untiring worker, to whom time was more precious than
gold. One who knew him well said of
him he possessed more good and useful traits of character than any person he
ever knew–so unselfish, social, kind to all–beloved by both old and
young he seemed to be happiest when making others happy. He cultivated the taste for the beautiful
by distributing freely, at times almost robbing himself of rare fruit or costly
plants to distribute to his neighbors.
He was a hearty and sincere believer in the Christian religion, but
adopting no particular religious creed.
When near death he wrote: “My family all attention. Every day growing weaker. The great change must soon occur. On the mercies of a kind Providence who
created me, who has sustained and helped me through a long life, I rely with a
firm faith and hope. We know not
what is beyond the grave. Vast
multitudes have gone there before us.
Love to all.
Farewell.”
REUBEN WOOD, Governor of Ohio from 1851 to 1853, was
born at Royalton, Vermont, in 1793, and died in 1864, at his farm
in Rockport.
When the war of 1812 broke out he was temporarily living with an uncle
in Canada, where he was studying the classics and reading law. He was subjected to military service
against his own country. To this he
would not submit, and, though placed under guard, succeeded at the hazard of his
life in effecting an escape in a small boat across the entire width of Lake
Ontario to Sackett’s Harbor. He then worked on the home farm to aid
his widowed mother and studied law.
In 1818 he emigrated to Cleveland and engaged
in the practice of his profession.
He was three times elected to the State Senate; in 1830 was elected
President-Judge of the Third Judicial District; in 1833 became Judge of the
Supreme Court by the unanimous vote of the Legislature; in 1841 he was
re-elected by the same vote, and for three years was the Chief-Justice. He was elected Governor by the
Democratic party in 1850 by a majority of 11,000, and
re-elected under the new Constitution in 1851 by a majority of 26,000. He resigned to accept the position of
consul at Valparaiso, Chili, and later became minister.
The climate proved too delicious; it seldom or never
rained, little else than a continuous calm and sunshine, while humanity there
in its stagnation of indolence and ignorance offered nothing to interest
him. In his quick disgust he was
stricken with nostalgia as bad as any of our poor soldier boys in the war time,
resigned, and came home that he might once again be a sharer in the activities
of a wonderfully progressive intellectual people, and again enjoy
the sight of a wild, howling storm on Lake Erie. Thus it was that he, whom in the
political parlance of the day was called all through Ohio from his great height
and residence “the tall chief of the Cuyahogas,”
returned home to pass the remainder of his days on his noble farm,
“Evergreen Place,” on the margin of the beautiful lake he loved so
well.
Harvey RICE, from whose article in the “Magazine
of Western History” we take some of the facts in this personal sketch and
in the two next to follow, writes of him: “Governor WOOD was one of
nature’s noblemen, large-hearted and generous to a fault. Nature gave him a slim tall figure over
six feet in height and replete with brains and mother wit.
He was quick in his perceptions, an excellent
classical scholar, a man of the people and honored by
the people. He possessed tact and
shrewdness; his statesmanship exhibited to a high degree wisdom and fore-cast,
while on the bench his decisions showed a profound knowledge of law, and
crowned his life-work as one of the ablest jurists of the State.”
And Judge THURMAN, on “Lawyers’ Day”
Ohio Centennial, Columbus, Wednesday, September 19, 1888, after speaking of the
greatness of Thomas EWING, thus expressed himself of Governor WOOD: “And
that unsurpassed nisi prius
Judge Reuben WOOD, who never left a jury when he charged it, but who was
clear-headed and brainy, and always to the point.”
SHERLOCK JAMES ANDREWS, the son of a physician, was
born in Wallingford, Conn., in 1801, graduated at Union College, for a time was
assistant of Prof. SILLIMAN at Yale, came to Cleveland in 1825, and was one of
the long noted law firm of ANDREWS, FOOT & HOYT. In 1840 he was elected to Congress, in
1848 was elected Judge of the
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Superior Court of Cleveland; was a member of the State
Constitutional Convention, and died in 1880. He was one of the leaders of the Ohio
bar–a man of pure principles and noble aspirations. Learned in the law and of persuasive and
somewhat impassioned eloquence he was noted for good sense and an electric wit
that would convulse alike the court and audience. A brother, also eminent in his
profession, John W. ANDREWS, settled in Columbus, where he yet resides, and in
his advanced age is an honored member of the “State Board of
Charities.”
RUFUS P. RANNEY is of Scotch descent. He was born in Blanford,
Mass., in 1813, and when a lad of eleven years came with his parents to
Freedom, Portage county. He chopped wood at twenty-five cents a
cord, and so earned money with which to enter Western Reserve College. Without graduating he traveled on foot
to Jefferson, Ashtabula county, carrying all his
worldly goods on his back with a single exception–an extra shirt that
went into his hat. He then entered
the law office of GIDDINGS & WADE.
When Mr. GIDDINGS was elected to Congress, he formed a partnership with
Mr. WADE. At the age of thirty-two
he opened a law office at Warren.
He was twice put in nomination by the Democratic party
for Congress. In 1851 he was a
member of the Constitutional Convention, and, although a young man, was
regarded as its Hercules. He has
been twice a Judge of the Supreme Bench, and was once the Democratic candidate
for Governor against Mr. Dennison just before the war, and when that ensued made speeches to secure enlistments.
As a lawyer he stands with scarcely an equal in the
State. Harvey RICE wrote of him:
“Judge RANNEY is not only born a logician, but has so improved
nature’s gifts as to become a most learned if not matchless reasoner. His
mental powers are gigantic. In a
great case, knarled and knotted as it may be, he
always proves himself equal to its clear exposition and logical solution. And yet he is modest even to
timidity. His presence is dignified,
and he is a man who has ripened into a noble manhood.”
HENRY CHISHOLM, who was the founder and President of
the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, the largest establishment of the kind in
the world, was born in Lochgelly, Fifeshire,
Scotland, in 1822. He was by trade
a carpenter, and when twenty years old landed at Montreal an almost penniless
youth. He became a master-builder,
worked for a time on the Cleveland breakwater, and in 1857 founded, at Newburg,
the iron manufacturing firm of CHISHOLM, JONES & Co., from which beginning
arose “the great establishment, the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which
is the pride of Cleveland and one of the marvels of modern times;”
employing in all 8,000 workmen. His
brother, three years younger, WILLIAM CHISHOLM, the inventor, joined him in
1857, and later engaged in the manufacture of spikes, bolts, and horse-shoes,
and after demonstrating by experiments the practicability of the manufacture of
screws from Bessemer steel, in 1871 organized the Union Steel Company of
Cleveland. He afterwards devised
new methods and machinery for manufacturing steel-shovels, spades and scoops, and
established a factory for the new industry. In 1882 he began to make steam-engines
of a new model, adapted for hoisting and pumping, and transmitters for carrying
coal and ore between vessels and railroad cars.
CHARLES FRANCIS BRUSH, electric inventor, was born in
Euclid, Cuyahoga county, in 1840, the son of a farmer,
and was educated at the University of Michigan. When a mere youth of fifteen he
constructed microscopes and telescopes for himself and companions, and devised
a plan for turning on gas in street-lamps and lighting and then extinguishing
it. After returning from college he
fitted up a laboratory and obtained a fine reputation as an analytical chemist.
In 1875 he turned his attention to electric
lighting. “The probability of
producing a dynamo machine that could produce the proper amount and kind of
electrical current for operating several lamps was submitted to him, and in
less than two months a machine was built so perfect and complete that for ten
years it has continued in regular use without change. A lamp that then could work successfully
on a circuit with a large number of other lamps, so that all would burn
uniformly, was then necessary, and this he produced in a few weeks. These two inventions were successfully
introduced in the United States during 1876. Since then he has produced more than
fifty patents, two-thirds of which are sources of revenue. They relate principally to details of
his two leading inventions–the dynamo and the lamp–and to methods
of their production. All of his
patents, present and future, are
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the property of the Electric Brush Company of Cleveland,
and his foreign patents are owned by the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light of
London. Pecuniary rewards and
honors have been awarded him; the French government decorated him
“Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.” Mr. BRUSH is of commanding presence,
uncommonly fine physique, and his residence is one of the palatial mansions for
which Euclid Avenue is famed. He is
yet a hard worker, his mind absorbed in invention and discovery. Such men are benefactors beyond the
power of expression.
JOHN HENRY DEVEREUX, who died in Cleveland in 1886, at
the age of fifty-four years, was one of the most efficient railroad managers
and foremost railroad men in the country.
He was born in Boston, and when sixteen years of age came to Northern
Ohio, and eventually served as construction engineer on several railroads. When the civil war arose he was in
Tennessee occupying a very prominent position in his profession, when he
offered his services to the government and became Superintendent of the
Military Railroads in Virginia.
Here the executive capacity he displayed in bringing order out of confusion,
overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles to move the armies and supply
transportation, was the wonder and admiration of the highest officers of the
government. In 1864 he returned to
Cleveland, and in succession became President of the C. C. C. & I., the A.
& G. W. and the I. & St. L.
By his personal courage in 1877 he prevented 800 of his men from joining
in the railroad riots.
The name LEONARD CASE, father and son, each thus named
alike, will long recall pleasant associations with Cleveland people. The elder, who died here in 1864, at the
age of eighty, was a native of Pennsylvania. He came to Cleveland from Warren,
Trumbull county, in 1816, and followed the business of
lawyer, banker, and land agent. He
took a warm interest in the progress of Cleveland; is said to have begun the work
of planting the trees whose luxuriant foliage now so pleasantly adorns the
“Forest City.” He was
the president of the village, the first county auditor, a great friend of the
canals, and one of the projectors of the first railroad–the C. C. &
C. With the great growth of his
fortunes he enlarged his benefactions.
His son, lately also deceased, inheriting his father’s disposition
and fortune, made a crowning gift of the Case Building, valued at $300,000, to
the Cleveland Library Association, a gift seldom equaled in the annals of
private munificence.
EDWIN COWLES, one of the veteran editors and printers
of Ohio, is of Puritan stock, born of Connecticut parents, in 1825, in Austinburg, Ashtabula county. He learned the printing business in the
office of the Cleveland Herald, now
the Leader, of which he is the
editor. In the winter of 1854-55 he
was one of those who, in the editorial room of his paper, took the initiatory
steps for the formation of the Republican
party of Ohio, which was a consolidation of the Free Soil, Know-Nothing, and
Whig parties, into one great party.
In 1861 he first suggested in his paper the nomination
by the Republican party of David TOD, a war-Democrat, to unite all the loyal
elements in the cause of the Union; and in 1863, in like manner suggested that
of John BROUGH, both of which were acted upon, and with most excellent
results. Immediately after the
Union defeat at Bull Run he wrote an editorial headed, “Now is the Time to
Abolish Slavery!” Strong in
his feelings, fearless, outspoken, and an untiring worker, he has been a
living, aggressive force in Cleveland.
In 1870, perceiving the great peril to life from the
various railroad crossings in the valley of the Cuyahoga, between the heights
of the east and west sides of Cleveland, he conceived the idea of a high
bridge, or viaduct as it is generally called, to span the valley and Cuyahoga
river, connecting the two hill-tops, thus avoiding going up and down hill and
crossing the “valley of death.” He wrote an elaborate editorial favoring
the city’s building the viaduct.
His suggestion met with fierce opposition from the other city papers, it
being considered by them utopian and unnecessary; but it was submitted to the
popular vote, and carried by an immense majority. This great work, costing nearly
$3,000,000, is one of the wonders of Cleveland.
“Mr. COWLES’ success in life has been
attained under extraordinary disadvantages. From his birth he was affected with a
defect in hearing, which caused so peculiar an impediment of speech that no
parallel case was to be found on record.
Until he was twenty-three years of age the peculiarity of this
impediment was not discovered. At
that age
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514
Prof. KENNEDY, a distinguished elocutionist, became
interested in his case, and, after a thorough examination, it was found that he
never heard the hissing sound of the human voice, and consequently had never
made that sound. Many of the
consonants sounded alike to him. He
never heard the notes of the seventh octave of the piano or organ, never heard
the upper notes of a violin, the fife in martial music, never heard a bird
sing, and has always supposed that the music of the birds was a poetical
fiction. This discovery of his
physical defect enabled him to act accordingly. After much time spent in practising under Prof. KENNEDY’s
tuition, he was enabled to learn arbitrarily how to make the hissing sound, but
he never hears the sound himself, although he could hear ordinary low-toned
conversation.”
HENRY B. PAYNE, a Senator from Ohio in the National
Congress, was born in 1810, in Hamilton, New York, of Connecticut stock;
graduated at Hamilton college, and came to the then village of Cleveland in
1833, and soon entered upon the practice of the law. In 1851 he was the first president of
the Cleveland and Columbus railroad, its inception and construction having been
mainly due to his efforts in conjunction with Alfred KELLY and Richard
HILLIARD. He was early interested
in manufacturing enterprises, having been at one time director and stockholder
in some eighteen different corporations.
In 1851 he was the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in
opposition to Benjamin F. WADE, and defeated by only one majority. In the war period he made speeches
advocating enlistments. In 1874 he
was elected to Congress, and during the exciting contest in the winter of
1876-77 over the election of President, he was chairman of the committee chosen
by the House to unite with one from the Senate in devising a method for
settling the difficulty, which resulted in the celebrated Electoral
Commission. In 1875 he was
prominently mentioned as the probable Democratic nominee for President. “As a lawyer Mr. PAYNE is
distinguished for fidelity, thoroughness, and forensic ability; and as a man,
for public spirit, coolness of temper, suavity, and genial humor, combined with
firmness and strength of will.”
JOSEPH PERKINS was born in Warren, Trumbull county, Ohio, July 5, 1819, and died at Saratoga Springs, N.
Y., August 26, 1885. He was a son
of General Simon PERKINS, one of the earliest and most active pioneers of Ohio,
who was extensively engaged in land transactions, and from who
he inherited a large estate.
At the age of twenty Joseph Perkins graduated from
Marietta College. He then returned
to Warren, and, after settling his father’s estate, removed to Cleveland
in 1852, where the remainder of his life was spent.
He was largely interested in banking, and as a
business man showed great financial and executive abilities. The “Historical and Biographical
Cyclopedia of Ohio,” from which we
extract this sketch, says of him: “His personal honesty was such that he
won the unquestioned trust of every one with who he came in contact, and in the
course of a long life that covered many large transactions,
involved great sums of money, and touched on many personal
interests, no one ever suspected him of a dishonest act or assigned to him a
base motive. His character shone
through all his deeds as the pure crystal.” It is not as a business man that Mr.
PERKINS is best known, but through his great philanthropy and boundless
generosity, his active interest and labor in public and private charities,
which were not confined within the limits of his own city or State lines, but
extended to many institutions in the South as well as
the North.
Mr. PERKINS’ most prominent public work was
through his connection with the Ohio Board of State Charities. It is but to repeat the language of all
cognizant with the facts to say that his was the master-hand that shaped the
work of that Board from the beginning.
He was appointed by Governor COX, in 1867, on the formation of the
Board, and, by successive reappointments, continued a member until his death. On the occasion of the first meeting, he
became impressed with the deplorable condition of many of the county jails.
He gave the matter not only time and thought, but at
his own expense traveled all over the Eastern States, inspecting a large number
of penal and reformatory institutions, and giving the matter a close and
intelligent study. He was an
investigator and a philosopher as well, and, on seeing a defect, could not only
discover its cause, but work intelligently toward a remedy. He modeled a plan which was accepted by
the Board and made its own, and that has become known and copied the country
over as the “jail system” of the Board of State Charities of
Ohio. What he aimed to achieve was
a