USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 3 > Part 42
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culty and saved over sixty per cent. of the material formerly discarded as useless. Mr. Schneller went to the aid of the busi- ness financially, and at the same time purchased the textile branch, which he reorganized under the name of the An- sonia O. & C. Company. Around this time he also organized the Schneller, Osborne and Cheeseman Company, which company in 1882 purchased a large tract of land from the Ansonia Land and Water Power Company, and through Mr. Schneller's inventions soon gained con- trol of the eyelet industry in the United States and abroad. He also made im- provements in the method of manufac- turing corset stays, and because of the importance of his inventions and their effect on the business, founded the Schneller Stay Works, in which he was the controlling spirit. Mr. Schneller was in fact the leading figure in the industrial world which has its centre in the Nauga- tuck Valley. He also founded the Union Fabric Company, of which he was treas- urer for many years. He was president of the Birmingham Brass Company, in which he took a deep interest, and which under his management became one of the leading concerns in that line in the Nau- gatuck Valley. Mr. Schneller was one of the most prominent of the industrial leaders who controlled the merger of the largest rubber concerns in the United States into one gigantic corporation. He was a director in this enterprise, and re- mained one of the most influential figures in the corporation until the time of his death.
Mr. Schneller's inventions were many. and varied and in almost every instance of a type which struck at the heart of old conditions and established a new era of efficiency. They ran the gamut from patent forms of buttons to complex forms of telegraphic apparatus, and established
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for him the reputation of a genius in his line of work.
Despite the fact that the interests and achievements of Mr. Schneller's life would seem sufficiently large to tax the ability of a man of more than ordinary strength and talent, they did not stop short with his business. He was deeply interested in the city of Ansonia, which with the exception of a few years resi- dence in New York, was his home. He was active in every movement for civic betterment and advance. He was affili- ated with the Democratic party, and was elected on the Democratic ticket to the Connecticut State Legislature from 1891 to 1893. Aside from his official capaci- ties in Ansonia, Mr. Schneller did much to further its interest in an unofficial way. He was largely responsible for the elec- tric street railway that was constructed between Ansonia and Derby. As a busi- ness man of extraordinarily keen percep- tions his advice and counsel were re- garded as worthy of attention, and sought by the citizens of the town on matters both private and public. He was always active in the cause of education, and did much to further better conditions in the schools as a member of the board of education. Mr. Schneller was thoroughly respected by his fellow citizens, and was universally loved, as only a man who de- votes his time unselfishly in the interests of others can be.
Mr. Schneller married, on May 1, 1873, Clarissa Alling, daughter of Sidney and Elizabeth (Remer) Alling, old residents of Ansonia. They were the parents of six children. Marie Eloise Schneller, the oldest daughter, was a scholar of excep- tional ability, and died shortly before her graduation from the Ansonia High School, where there is now a memorial window in her honor. George Otto Schneller, Jr., (of whom further), has
succeeded Mr. Schneller, Sr., in the enter- prises which the elder man directed.
Several of the largest and most impor- tant industries of Ansonia owe their existence to the business and inventive genius of the late George Otto Schneller, and are silent yet eloquent monuments to him. It is not too much to say that Ansonia owes much of her present posi- tion as a manufacturing city of impor- tance in Connecticut to the presence in it of industries of the size of those con- trolled and directed by the Schneller interests. Mr. Schneller was a man of strong and magnetic personality, making friends who remained his friends for all time. He was a man who quickly saw opportunity and grasped it, and who had the ability to go straight to the heart of a matter. His methods of business were direct, honest, and open to the view of all who cared to see or know, and for his integrity he was appreciated and loved in Ansonia, as much as for his personality and character.
George Otto Schneller died in Ansonia, Connecticut, October 20, 1895.
George Otto Schneller, Jr., son of George Otto and Clarissa (Alling) Schneller, was born 'in Ansonia, Connec- ticut, on November 27, 1878. After hav- ing acquired the necessary primary edu- cation locally, he entered the Andover Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, sub- sequently taking an advanced course at the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, Connecticut. The death of his father and the necessity devolving upon the son to efficiently assume control of and ably continue the many and impor- tant manufacturing interests developed by Mr. Schneller, Sr., probably influenced him in taking a technical course of in- struction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, from which he graduated in 1900. Since that time his
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years have been given almost wholly to business, and the present standing of the firms with which he is interested in execu- tive capacity, indicates that he possesses in great measure the able qualities of his father. At present he is treasurer and secretary of the Ansonia O. & C. Com- pany, and member of the board of direc- tors of the Schneller, Osborne & Cheese- man Corporation. His business ability and financial interests also have gained him a place on the directorate of the An- sonia National Bank.
Fraternally he is a Mason, of the thirty-second degree, and member of the Chi Phi fraternity. Socially he belongs to the University and Technical clubs of New York; to the Graduates, Country, and Lawn clubs of New Haven; to the Race Brook Country Club, of Orange, Connecticut ; and to the Waterbury (Con- necticut) Country Club. Religiously, he is a member of the Congregational church.
On September 29, 1915, at the Church of the Transfiguration, New York City, Mr. Schneller married Priscilla Jewett, daughter of William Eugene and Eva Richard (Jewett) Schweppe. They have one child, a son, George Otto (3d), born June 20, 1916.
STEINER, Walter Ralph, M. D., Physician, Hospital Official.
Walter Ralph Steiner, successful physi- cian of Hartford, Connecticut, is the son of the late Lewis Henry Steiner, M. A., M. D., LL. D., Litt. D., a distinguished physician and scientist of Baltimore, Maryland, with which State the Amer- ican branch of the Steiner family was connected for many generations, Jacob Stoner, or Steiner, the progenitor in America, having settled in Frederick county, Maryland, in the year 1733.
The Steiner genealogy makes reference to the early history in Germany of the Steiner von Steindorf family, from which presumably Jacob Stoner, or Steiner, sprang. Quoting therefrom, it appears that Maximilian Steiner was made a knight (Ritter) on November 26, 1311, by Ludwig of Bavaria; he was created so because he had "saved the life of Lud- wig of Bavaria in a bear hunt, having freed him from great peril of life by seiz- ing a bear that rushed at him, and stran- gling it with both hands." His king and lord gave him a knight's castle, which Maximilian made his family castle (Stammschloss), changing its name from Gunthersburg to Steindorf. He was killed at the battle given against Fred- erick of Austria at Muhldorf, "at the head of his faithful followers."
His only and posthumous son, Ludwig, was born in the nunnery of Wunsiedl, to which his widow had retired in her be- reavement. The arms of the Steiner von Steindorf family bear at the foot of the shield the name Maxmylian Steiner, in red ecclesiastical letters, and constitute as a whole a true representation of the arms which Ludwig of Bavaria presented to the ancestor of the Steiner family at the tournament of Goslar. The diploma of nobility, as well as the letters which were confirmed by Emperor Sigismund in 1397 and announced at Erfurt, July 26, 1397, are to be found in the original in the Imperial Chamber at Wetzlas. A copy is in the archives of family arms (Familien-Wappen-Archiv) at Vienna.
The family of Steiner appears for the first time as a noble house in one of the archives of the Reichskammer of the Elector of Saxony, which is dated "Re- gensburg, 22d of the month of August, in the year of our Saviour, 1340," and had reference to a dispute between the house of which Ludwig von Steindorf, son of
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Maximilian, was the head, and another noble house. And the record shows that Ludwig von Steindorf was placed under the imperial ban and his castle confis- cated. Thereupon he went into a monas- tery at Goslar, and died there on March 27, 1342, "from grief and anguish at the rendition of so unjust a judgment." Three months prior to his decease, the Emperor annulled the imperial ban, "but the edict was concealed and held back by the trickery of the revengeful Bishop of Wurzburg."
The progenitor in America of that branch of the Steiner family to which Dr. Walter Ralph Steiner belongs, was Jacob Stoner, or Steiner, who was born in 1713, and who died in 1748. The "Genealogy of the Steiner Family" (1896) states that "it is quite probable that he was the Jacob Steiner who arrived at Philadelphia in the vessel 'Pennsyl- vania,' merchant, from Rotterdam, on September II, 1731." He had settled in Frederick county, Maryland, before 1736. (One record states it definitely as 1733). The land upon which he settled was even- tually purchased by him on July 26, 1746, the price paid by him then for five hun- dred and ninety-seven acres being sixty- five pounds. He was evidently a man of some means and prominence in the com- munity, but left no will, and his estate was never administered.
Captain John Stoner, or Steiner, eldest child of Jacob, married Catherine Eliza- beth Ramsburg. He inherited from his father the Mill Pond estate, and became a miller, which occupation, in addition to the yield from his landed estate, brought him "a large fortune for those days." Family tradition has reported that he was a soldier in the French and Indian War ; he served throughout Braddock's cam- paign, and was in the quartermaster's de- partment of the Continental army during
the Revolution. He was a prominent citizen, being captain of militia in 1775, and served as a member of the Committee of Observation for the middle district of Frederick county.
Henry, third son of Captain John and Catherine Elizabeth (Ramsburg) Stoner, or Steiner, was born in 1764, farmed his inherited land on the Woodsborough road in Frederick county, Maryland, and died in Frederick City, on April 24, 1831.
Christian Steiner, sixth child of Henry and Elizabeth (Brengel) Steiner, was born January 14, 1797, and died February 26, 1862. He married his second cousin, Rebecca Weltzheimer, born April 20, 1802, died April 21, 1862. Christian Steiner, as a younger son of a large fam- ily, had "early to start in business for himself." He took much interest in pub- lic affairs, was for many years a director of the Fredericktown Savings Institution, and was one of the founders and trustees of the Frederic Female Seminary. Mem- ber of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Frederick, in which he was confirmed in 1821, he served several terms as elder.
Lewis Henry Steiner, son of Christian and Rebecca (Weltzheimer) Steiner and father of Dr. Walter Ralph Steiner, of Hartford, was born on May 4, 1827, and died on February 18, 1892. He married, on October 30, 1866, Sarah Spencer Smyth, of Guilford, Connecticut. Lewis Henry Steiner was prepared for college at the Frederick Academy, whence he entered the sophomore class of Marshall College, from which institution he was graduated in 1846. Proctors who exer- cised much influence over him during his collegiate course were Professors J. W. Nevin, D. D., Philip Schaff, D. D., and Traill Green, M. D. After graduating at Marshall College, Lewis Henry Steiner entered upon the study of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, gaining in
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1849 the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Almost simultaneously he received the major academic degree, Master of Arts, from Marshall College, and in 1854 re- ceived the same degree (honoris causa) from the College of St. James, and in 1869 from Yale College. He began medical practice in Frederick, Maryland, but in 1852 removed to Baltimore to assume a professional capacity under Dr. John R. W. Dunbar, who conducted a private medical institute. As such he continued until 1855, when, having previously un- dertaken exhaustive research in natural science, particularly botany and chemis- try, he resolved to devote his time en- tirely to the teaching of these sciences. "He was one of the earliest physiological chemists in the country, and his mono- graph on strychnia was well-known." From 1853 until 1856 he was Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at Co- lumbia University, as well as Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy and dean of the National Medical College. During the period of 1854-59 he was Lecturer on Chemistry and Physics at the College of St. James ; in 1855 and 1856 was Swann Lecturer on Applied Chemistry in the Maryland Institute ; and in the latter year reorganized the Maryland College of Pharmacy, serving as Professor of Chem- istry there until 1861; was one of the incorporators of and professors in the Mount Washington Female College, Bal- timore ; and was librarian of the Mary- land Historical Society from 1856 to 1861. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Steiner returned to Frederick and entered the United States Sanitary Comission, as one of its inspectors. In 1863 he became chief inspector for the Army of the Poto- mac, and, in recognition of his valuable services in the war, the New York Com- mandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States elected
him a companion of the third class in 1868. In 1865 he was elected president of the school board of Frederick county, and acted as such until 1868, reorganizing the school system of that county. In 1871, in the Republican interest, he was sent to the State Senate as member from Fred- erick county. He did good work, and was twice reelected, thus serving as State Senator for twelve years. In 1876 he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention which nominated General R. B. Hayes to the presidency. From 1873 until 1884 he held journalistic connection with the Frederick "Examiner" as polit- ical editor, and in November, 1884, was appointed librarian of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, then established. He organized the library, which opened with 20,000 volumes and held the ap- pointment until his death, which came suddenly in 1892. He was succeeded by his talented son, Dr. Bernard C. Steiner, of Baltimore. During his administration, the library increased to a capacity of 100,- ooo volumes, and to an annual circulation of 450,000 books, among the people of Baltimore. He was honored by many medical, scientific and other organiza- tions ; was elected a fellow of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, in 1853: was fellow of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science ; was member of American Medical Asso- ciation ; correspondent to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science ; correspond- ing member of Maryland Academy of Sciences : member, and in 1876 vice-presi- dent of the American Public Health As- sociation ; and was identified with the New Haven Colony Historical Society, as member ; Hampton Normal and Agricul- tural Institute, trustee ; American Library Association, vice-president in 1891 ; Maryland Historical Society. member ; International Medical Congress in Phil-
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adelphia ; American Academy of Medi- cine, of which he was one of the founders in 1876, vice-president 1876 and 1877, and president 1878; and of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, original member in 1886. Dr. Steiner re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Laws from Delaware College in 1884, and that of Doctor of Literature from Franklin and Marshall in 1887. His literary produc- tions include : Translation of Wills' "Chemical Analysis," 1854; translations of nearly a dozen works of German fic- tion ; many medical and scientific mono- graphs ; and the "History of Guilford, Connecticut," 1876. He was prominent in the affairs of the Reformed Church in the United States, and several times served as elder in the Evangelical Reformed Church at Frederick, and as treasurer of the Potomac Synod. In 1863, Dr. Steiner was one of the secretaries of the Tercen- tenary Celebration of the Heidelburg Catechism ; in 1866 helped to prepare an "Order of Worship" for the church; in 1874, a "Hymn Book;" and, in 1883, a "Directory of Worship." With Professor Henry Schwing, he prepared two hymn books-"Cantate Domino," in 1859, and "Tunes for Worship" in 1884.
Walter Ralph Steiner, M. D., son of Lewis Henry and Sarah Spencer (Smyth) Steiner, was born in Frederick City, Maryland, on November 18, 1870. His preparatory education was obtained at the University School, Baltimore, and was supplemented by instruction under private tutors. In 1889 he entered Yale University for the academic course, and in 1892 was graduated, gaining the degree of Bachelor of Arts, followed in 1895 by the degree of Master of Arts. Resolved to qualify for entrance to the medical pro- fession, in 1892 he proceeded to the Jolins Hopkins University, Baltimore, Mary- land, and two years later entered the
medical department of that university, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medi- cine therefrom in 1898. After a term of service, during 1898-99, as one of the resident house officers of the Johns Hop- kins Hospital, he came to Hartford, Con- necticut, in 1900, and immediately opened an office for general practice, soon com- ing into notice as an able specialist of pathology and bacteriology. Since 1901, he has been identified with the medical staff of Hartford Hospital; his first ap- pointment was that of pathologist and bacteriologist; he was assistant visiting physician, 1905-07; was appointed visit- ing physician in 1908; and since 1912 has been also consulting pathologist and bac- teriologist to the hospital. Dr. Walter Ralph Steiner holds official connection with other Connecticut hospitals, being consulting physician to the Hartford Iso- lation Hospital, to the Hartford Orphan Asylum, and to the Middlesex Hospital, of Middletown. He is connected with many National and State medical organ- izations, being a member of: The Asso- ciation of American Physicians, the American Climatological and Clinical As- sociation, the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists, the American Medical Association, the Con- necticut State Medical Society of which he was secretary during the period of 1905 to 1912. the Hartford County Med- ical Association ; the Hartford Medical Society, of which he is librarian, the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science, and the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, of which he has been secretary since 1911. By reason of his ancestry he holds mem- bership in the Sons of the American Rev- olution, and because of historical leanings in the family, as exhibited in his grand- father, the late Judge Ralph D. Smyth, a former well known antiquarian, his father.
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his brother and himself, he was elected a member of the Connecticut Historical Society in 1909.
A Republican of staunch allegiance, and an earnest member of the Congrega- tional Church, Dr. Steiner has, since tak- ing residence in Hartford, become well regarded in the city. His social affili- ations include membership in the Hart- ford, the University, the Hartford Golf, the Twentieth Century, and the Megantic Fish and Game clubs. His contributions to medical literature include articles on internal medicine, pathology and medical history. Among his writings on medical history we may mention: "A Contribu- tion to the History of Medicine in the Province of Maryland," "A Contribution to the History of Medicine in Maryland During the Revolution," and "Governor John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut, as a Physician." All of these articles have appeared in the "Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital." He is also the author of the two chapters on the diseases of the muscles in the seven-volume text book on "Modern Medicine" which was edited dur- ing 1907 to 1910 by Sir William Osler, and has appeared in two editions. Inherit- ing literary inclinations from his talented father, Dr. Steiner is an enthusiastic col- lector of old prints, and good literature. On June 15, 1914. he was one of the prin- cipal speakers at the celebration of the centenary of the Yale Medical School, in Woolsey Hall, New Haven.
WORDIN, Nathaniel Sherwood, Enterprising Citizen, Public Official.
The Wordin family was established in Bridgeport by Thomas Wordin in the beginning of the eighteenth century or in the latter part of the seventeenth. The exact date of his coming to America from England is not known, the earliest record
of him here being his marriage on Janu- ary 18, 1728, to Jemima Beardsley, daugh- ter of David and Ann (Seeley) Beardsley ; she was born in 1709. Since its establish- ment the family has been prominent in the civic, social and religious interests of the country in and around the towns of Stratford, and Bridgeport, in Fairfield county, in the State of Connecticut, where the immigrant ancestor, Thomas Wordin, first settled. In the six generations de- scended from Thomas Wordin the fam- ily has been connected through marriage with some of the most important and prominent families in the history of the State, among which are the following: Seeley, Odell, Walker, Wheeler, Cooke, Trowbridge, Leete, Booth, Wilcoxson, Sherwood, Fitch, Burr, Warde, Sherman, Nichols, Curtis, Porter, Wakeman, Haw- ley, Thompson, Welles and Leavenworth. (II) Captain William Wordin, son of Thomas and Jemima (Beardsley) Wor- din, was born in North Stratford (now Trumbull), Connecticut, and baptized there August 18, 1734. His mother joined the Stratfield church on August 8, 1731, and the North Stratford church, Febru- ary 29, 1736. Captain Wordin purchased a plot of land from Ezra Kirtland on which he built his homestead, corner of State street and Park avenue. He was prominent in the affairs of the com- inunity, and served on the society's com- mittee of the church, as well as on the school committee. In the American Rev- olution he was a loyal Whig, and was captain of a company of militia known as the Householders. He died at the age of seventy-five years, in 1808. He married Anna Odell, of Fairfield, Connecticut, daughter of Samuel and Judith Ann (Wheeler ) Odell : she was born in 1737. and died in 1805.
(III) William (2) Wordin, son of Captain William (1) and Anna (Odell)
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Wordin, was born in 1759, and died April 15, 1814. He was a resident of Bridge- port, and married Dorcas Cooke, daughter of John and Martha (Booth) Cooke. She was born in 1763, and died on July 25, 1854, at the age of ninety-one years.
(IV) Thomas Cooke Wordin, son of William (2) and Dorcas (Cooke) Wor- din, was born in the Wordin homestead built by his grandfather, at what is now the corner of State street and Park ave- nue, Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1787. In boyhood he became a clerk in the drug store of Samuel Darling at New Haven, and at the age of twenty-one he embarked in the same business on his own account in Bridgeport. Throughout his active life he prosecuted this enterprise with marked success, his store being in a building erected by him about 1816 on State street, just west of the old postoffice. He was one of the representative merchants of his time and was known for the strictest integrity as well as old-fashioned New England ideals and principles. Acquir- ing by purchase the Norwalk flouring mills, he remodeled them for grinding spices, and the resulting product com- manded a ready market. To the city of Bridgeport he offered two thousand dol- lars to establish a public square west of Courtland street, but no action was taken on the proposal. He married, 1812, Ann Sherwood, daughter of Philemon and Hepzibah (Burr) Sherwood. Children : Nathaniel Sherwood, mentioned below ; Lucy S., became the wife of Edmund S. Hawley; Susan, became the wife of Charles Kelsey ; Thomas, died in infancy ; Elmer and a twin brother, died in in- fancy : Mary ; Aun B., became the wife of John W. Hincks: Caroline, became the wife of W. W. Naramore ; Thomas Cooke, married Betsey Ann Plumb; and Eliza- beth. The father of these children died November 20, 1852.
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