Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, 8th ed., Part 56

Author: Calumet Book & Engraving Company, Chicago
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Chicago : Calumet Book and Engraving Co.
Number of Pages: 930

USA > Illinois > Cook County > Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, 8th ed. > Part 56

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Constantly has the business of Mr. Gross in- creased, until his dealings have reached the mill- ions. He buys property outright, and then sells as the purchasers feel that they can pay. It is said that he lias never foreclosed a mortgage, and his kindliness, forbearance and generosity have won for him the love and confidence of the poorer people and the high regard of all.

Mr. Gross was married in January, 1874, to

Miss Emily Brown, a lady of English descent. He is a member of the Chicago Club, the Union Club, the Washington Park, the Athletic, Mar- quette and Iroquois Clubs. He is a patron of the Art Institute and the Humane Society, and his support is given to other benevolent organizations. He holds membership with the Chicago Union Veteran Club; U. S. Grant Post No. 28, G. A. R .; the Western Society Army of the Potomac, and the Sons of the American Revolution.

In 1886, Mr. Gross made a trip to Europe, spending four months in visiting the leading cit- ies and points of interest in that continent. He also made investigations concerning city develop- inent. In1 1889, he traveled through Mexico and the cities on the Pacific Coast, and later in the year attended the Paris Exposition. In 1892, he went to Europe once more, and also visited the Orient. In manner, Mr. Gross is genial, pleas- ant and entertaining, and the kindliness of his face at once wins him friends. Although he would not be called a professing philanthropist, his life has certainly been characterized by a practical charity, which has probably proven of more bene- fit than the acknowledged philanthropic work of some others. His success in business seems mar- velous, yet it is but the result of industry, enter- prise, and careful and well-directed management.

CALVIN DE WOLF.

ALVIN DE WOLF, now one of the foremost citizens of Chicago, is an example of the manner in which men rise to stations of wealth and honor through sturdy moral integrity and unceasing, ambitious toil. His story is that of a young man who came to Chicago with nothing in the days of the city's infancy, and by a sustained effort has grown with the city's growth, until lie is numbered among the representative men of the "great city by the iuland sea."

Calvin De Wolf was born in Braintrim, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of February, 1815, and was one of the family of fifteen children of Giles M. De Wolf, a well-to-do farmer. His father and grandfather were born in Pomfret, Con- necticut, and his more remote ancestors were among the early settlers in Lyme, Connecticut, being colonists who came over from Holland, to which country they had probably been driven from France (where the family originated) by religious

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persecution. His mother, whose maiden name was Auna Spaulding, was born in Cavendislı, Ver- mont, and was a descendant of Edward Spaulding, who settled in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in 1633.

Soon after the birth of Calvin De Wolf, his par- ents removed to his mother's native place and re- mained there until he was five years of age, and then returned to Braintrim, Pennsylvania, from whence, four years later, they removed to the ad- joining county of Bradford, where his father pur- chased a farm in the beech woods of that county. This farm was covered with heavy timber, the clearing of which was a task of a different kind and of much greater magnitude than falls to the lot of most farmers of the present day. Putting this land into condition to be sufficiently produc- tive to support the large family of its owner fur- nished work for every hand for years.

Calvin De Wolf was the eldest of his father's sons who lived beyond the infantile period, and converting the beech forest into tillable land was a task in which he was required to practice, and which, with the tilling of the soil, required all his time except the three winter months, when he at- tended school until he was twenty-one years of age. After attaining his majority he made up his mind to obtain an education, and, under the in- struction of his father, who was a man of more than ordinary ability, had a good common-school education and was well versed in mathematics, he obtained a good knowledge of arithmetic, algebra and surveying. He was also assisted to a knowl- edge of the elements of Latin by a gentleman of liberal education who lived in the neighborhood. When he had progressed to this point in educa- tion, he left home and entered Grand River In- stitute, in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1836. That institution, then famous throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, was conducted some- what on the plan of agricultural colleges of the present day, in that students who desired to do so could partially support themselves by manual la- bor and pursue a course of study at the same time. For a year and a half young De Wolf maintained himself at this school and fitted himself for teach- ing; he also presided for a term or two at the peda-

gogue's desk. At all times, however, when op- portunity offered, he was intent on study and made the most of his educational opportunities.

Then, as now, the West was looked to as the land of opportunities and the goal of the ambition of every aspiring young man. Calvin De Wolf, with his industrious habits and ambitious desires, was not content to spend his days in the East, but looked westward with longing eyes, and in those days the West was not so far away as now and Chicago was included in the term. In the fall of 1837, young De Wolf arranged with a trader who was making a shipment of fruit by boat from Aslı- tabula to Chicago to pay his passage between the cities by assisting to load and unload the fruit and take charge of it in transit, which agreement he faithfully carried out and, in due time, found lıim- self in this city, then covering a small area of ter- ritory at the mouth of the Chicago River and hav- ing but one four-story brick building-the old Lake House, then tlie pride of the West. The first thing the young inan liad to do was to look for employment, for he had come West with very little money. He hoped to obtain a situation as teacher in the city schools, and passed the required examination for license to teach, but his hopes were disappointed and he had to seek elsewhere, as there were others whose claims had to be first considered. Disappointed but not cast down, he set out on foot across the prairie to seek like em- ployment in some other locality. After traveling thirty-five or forty miles, he at last arrived at Hadley, Will County, Illinois, with only a York shilling in his pocket. He was more fortunate in his quest there, and obtained the position of vil- lage schoolmaster, teaching during the winter of 1837-38, and returning the following spring to Chicago. Here he again made application for em- ployment as teacher, and was successful. While teaching school he also engaged in various other occupations which were calculated to improve his financial condition.

In 1838, Mr. De Wolf began the study of law in the office of Spring & Goodrich, a firm com- posed of Giles Spring, afterward Judge of the Su- perior Court of Chicago, and Grant Goodrich, for many years one of the prominent lawyers of the

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city. In1 1843, he was examined and admitted to the Bar by Judge Richard M. Young, and The- ophilus W. Smith, then sitting on the Supreme Bench, and immediately after began practice in this city, which then had a Bar consisting of about thirty lawyers, a large number of whom became prominent as jurists in later years. Up to 1854, Mr. De Wolf was engaged in the active practice of law. He was then elected Justice of the Peace, an office which at that time and place was a highly important and responsible one, as the city was de- veloping rapidly and the amount of business in- cident to its growth gave rise to a great deal of friction, which had to be adjusted in the tribunal of law. Mr. De Wolf held this office six successive · terms, four by popular election and two by ap- pointment. The whole period covered was inore than twenty-five years, and more than ninety thousand cases were disposed of by him, a far greater number than any other judicial officer in this State had ever decided. Preliminary exam- inations in many important cases which afterward became celebrated in the higher courts were heard in the earlier years of his magistracy by Judge De Wolf, as he was then known to the profession and the public.'

Judge De Wolf had been taught from childhood to hate slavery, and as early as 1839 became Sec- retary of an anti-slavery society, of which Rev. Flavel Bascom, a Presbyterian minister, was the first President, and Judge Manierre, Treasurer, and of which many of the prominent business and professional men of the city were earnest and ac- tive members. In 1842, the Illinois State Anti- Slavery Society held a meeting in Chicago, at which an organization was effected to raise funds for establishing an anti-slavery newspaper in Chi- cago. Henry L. Fulton, Charles V. Dyer, Shu- bal D. Childs and Calvin De Wolf were appointed a committee to collect funds and set the enterprise 011 foot, Mr. De Wolf being made Treasurer of the comninittee. As a result of their efforts, the West- ern Citizen came into existence, with Z. Eastman as editor and publisher, and for several years it was recognized as one of the leading Abolition newspapers in the country. It was in 1858, that Mr. De Wolf, in connection with other Abolition-

ists of Chicago, brought down upon himself the wrath of a disappointed slave-hunter and his sym- pathizers, who sought to inflict upon him condign punishment for facilitating the escape of a liberty- seeking black woman.

Stephen F. Nuckolls was a southern man who had carried his slaves with him into Nebraska. One of these slaves, a young negro woman, Eliza, made her escape, and by some ineans or other found her way to Chicago, to which place she was followed by her master, Nuckolls, who came near effecting her capture. His scheme was frustrated by the parties who appeared before Judge De Wolf, charging him with riotous conduct. Under the warrant issued from the magistrate's court, the slave-owner was arrested and locked up for a few hours, and in the mean time the colored wo- man made her escape from the city. Nuckolls carried the matter to the United States Courts, and succeeded in having the magistrate, Mr. De Wolf, George Anderson, A. D. Hayward and C. L. Jenks indicted for "aiding a negro slave called Eliza to escape from her master," she having been "held as a slave in Nebraska and escaped to Illinois." This involved the constitutional ques- tions as to whether or not slaves could be hield in free territory. The defendants held that the negro woman was not lawfully held as a slave in Nebraska, and moved to quash the indictment on that ground. This motion was never passed upon by the court, but, in 1861, the case was dismissed by advice of the Hon. E. C. Larned, United States District Attorney.

It is almost superfluous to state that a man hold- ing the radical views of Calvin De Wolf became identified at the outset of its existence with the Republican party, and that he still remains in the ranks of the same organization. But he has never been an active politician. He served two terins as a member of the Board of Aldermen of Chicago, and from 1856 to 1858 served as Chair- 11an of the Committee on Revision and Publication of Ordinances, where he rendered important service to the city in codifying and putting the ordinances in form to be easily referred to, to be generally un- derstood and easily and systematically enforced. He retired from the position of Magistrate in 1879,

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C. M. FITCH.

and is not now engaged in the practice of law, but devotes his time mainly to the management of his financial affairs.

Mr. De Wolf is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is now one of the Elders of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, in which he is an influential member, and in the work of which lie bears a prominent part. "Do right" is a motto which he has made the rule of his life. In the discharge of his duties as a public official he was

conscientious and upright; as a lawyer, watchful over his client's interests and honorable in his dealings with bothi court and client; in his general business dealings he has been a man of his word, upright and honest. His residence in Chicago from pioneer times has caused him to be well known, and he is regarded as one of the land- marks of a generation of sagacious business men now rapidly passing away.

DR. CALVIN M. FITCH.

R. CALVIN MAY FITCH, one of the oldest physicians now in active practice in this city, graduated at the medical department of the university of New York in 1852, and subse- quently studied in Europe. He came to Chicago in 1855, and is therefore in the fortieth year of his practice in this city. Doctor Fitch was born January 3, 1829, in Sheldon, Franklin County, Vermont. His grandfather, Dr. Chauncey Fitch, married the daughter of Colonel Sheldon, for whom the town of Sheldon was named, and prac- ticed there until his death. Colonel Sheldon com- manded the Connecticut Cavalry during the Revo- lutionary War, and the family have several letters of Washington's still in their possession. Doctor Fitch's father, Rev. John Aslıley Fitch, an Epis- copal clergyman, married the daughter of Dr. Cal- vin May, who for nearly fifty years practiced medicine in St. Armand, Canada, just across the Vermont line. Doctor May graduated from Yale about the close of the Revolutionary war, and he and Dr. Chauncey Fitch were the pioneer physi- cians in that section, and although eighteen miles apart, frequently met in consultation.

Doctor Fitch is of old New England stock, the sixth in descent from Rev. James Fitch, who came to this country from Bocking, England, in 1638. Maj. James Fitch, son of Rev. James Fitch, served

in King Philip's War. He was active in promot- ing the founding of Yale College, donating to the college in October, 1731, six hundred and forty- seven acres of land in the town of Killingsly, and all the glass and nails which should be necessary to build the college edifice. Rev. Ebenezer Fitch, a grandson of this Maj. James Fitch, and brother of Dr. Chauncey Fitch, was a tutor in Yale for several years prior to 1791, wlien he resigned from Yale to take charge of the Academy at Willianis- town, Massachusetts, and when that academy was chartered as a college (Williams College) in 1793, Mr. Fitch was elected its first President, which position he held for twenty-two years.

In 1860 Doctor Fitch married Susan Ransom, daughter of Daniel Ransom, originally from Woodstock, Vermont, and for many years in business in this city. In 1871 Mr. Ransom re- moved to Longmont, Colorado, where he recently died at the age of eighty-one. Doctor Fitch has one son, Dr. Walter May Fitch, a graduate of Rush Medical College, who is associated with his fatlier in practice.

Doctor Fitcli is or has been a member of several medical societies, the Chicago Medical, the South Avenue, the State Medical and American Medical Associations, but has never been connected with any medical school, although a professorship has

CHARLES HUNTINGTON.

been twice offered him. He has always enjoyed the study of languages, and speaks several fluently, and it is partly in consequence of this fact that no small percentage of his large practice is among

our foreign-born citizens. A practice of this char- acter involves much hard work, but carries with it the chance to do much good.

CHARLES HUNTINGTON.

HARLES HUNTINGTON, a veteran of the railroad service in Chicago and the oldest general baggage agent, in point of service, in the United States, was born in Hartford, Con- necticut, May 29, 1824. He is a son of Christo- pher and Mary (Webb) Huntington. The Hunt- ington family is one of the oldest in Connecticut. All persons of that name in America are supposed to be descendants of Christopher Huntington and his brothers, who came from England in the early days of the Connecticut colony. They sprang from an ancient English family, and the name is supposed to have originated as a military title. Their posterity is numerous, and includes many noted American citizens. The name of- Christo- pher Huntington was perpetuated through seven successive generations, the father of the subject of this sketch being the last. His father, Christo- pher Huntington, was a physician who practiced in Connecticut. The father of Charles Hunting- ton was a wholesale manufacturer of shoes, and was a member of the Governor's Foot Guards, a regiment of Connecticut militia. He died in 1832, at the premature age of thirty-five years.

Mrs. Mary Huntington was a daugliter of Ab- ner Webb, a Revolutionary soldier, who also rep- resented one of the early Connecticut families. She survived her husband but one year, dying in 1833, and leaving three orphaned sons. Charles is the eldest. Henry is now a prominent citizen of Burnham, Michigan, and George died in 1850, of yellow fever, at Mobile, Alabama.

Soon after his father's death, on the 3d of July, 1832, Charles Huntington left his boyhood home and took passage by stage to Albany, en route to the home of an uncle at Penn Yan. His young

heart was sorely tried by this separation from natal ties, but the celebration of the Nation's birthday at Albany the next morning after his ar- rival there distracted his attention from his child- ish sorrow and so cheered the way that his further stage journey to Schenectady was made in com- parative comfort. Here he took passage on the Erie Canal as far as Geneva, whence the journey was completed by stage. At Penn Yan, he found a comfortable home with his uncle, Elisha H. Huntington, who afterwards became a banker in Chicago.

Charles received about two years' schooling in all, spending most of his boyhood in working at odd jobs. Being a robust youth, he was adapted to many useful employments, and among other things, assisted in building the Congregational Churchi at Penn Yan, for which his uncle had the contract, handling all the material for that struc- ture. At the age of nineteen, he was entrusted by his uncle with an important mission to Phila- delphiia, where he was sent to purchase an outfit for bottling mineral waters, and subsequently took charge of a drug store at Rochester, owned by Elisha Huntington. At one time, he was em- ployed as conductor of a construction train on the Canandaigua & Elmira Railroad. .

At an early age, he went to the Isthmus of Panama, to take charge of the inachine depart- ment of the Panama Railroad, at Aspinwall. He was one of the very few non-residents who escaped the Chiagres fever, and at the end of his one year's engagement, he resigned and returned to New York. Thence, in March, 1854, he came to Chi- cago and soon after accepted a position as en- gineer on the Great Western Railroad-now a

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part of the Wabash system-his headquarters be- ing at Springfield, Illinois. On the 10th day of January, 1855, he entered the employ of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, with which he has been since continuously engaged. He was pro- moted from engineer to freight conductor, and soon afterward became a passenger conductor. In 1858, he was made general baggage agent with office on the site of the present Chicago Union Passenger Station. His appointment was made by a receiver, in whose hands the affairs of the company were then placed, and as the duties of the office were comparatively light, he continued to run a passenger train between Chicago and St. Lonis until 1865, employing only one assistant in his office at Chicago. These statements show a vast difference between the passenger traffic of those days and the present. When he first en- tered the service of this road, the eastern terminus was at Joliet, whence all freight for Chicago was transferred to the canal, the passenger trains reaching this city by way of the Chicago & Rock Island tracks. The southern terminus was at Alton, where all passengers and freight for St. Louis were transferred to Mississippi steamboats.

In 1857, Mr. Huntington took a prominent part in a strike on the part of employees of this line, which suspended all business thereon for eighteen days. This strike was caused by arrear- age of salaries, ranging from three to eighteen months. Mr. Huntington was a member of a committee which settled the matter with ex-Gov. Joel A. Matteson, who was lessee of the road, the trouble being compromised by payment of part of the arrearages at once and the promise of double payments each month until all were paid up in full.

The scarcity of currency at that time is illus- trated by the fact that the conductor rarely col- lected sufficient cash on a trip to pay the board bills of his crew for the same time. The rude appliances and equipments of railroads in those days made railroad operation a very difficult mat- ter. Many cars were without sufficient brakes, and a "down grade" had terrors for the men on a heavy train. It was often necessary to set out cars with defective brakes or, as was not infrequent,

with no brake at all, to avoid disaster. On one occasion, while approaching Alton on a steep down grade, Conductor Huntington was horrified by the discovery that there was not a working brake on the train. The labors of the reversed engine, however, attracted the attention of the Alton station agent, who ran out and so placed the switches that they passed the station without doing any damage and were able to bring the train to a stop after running a mile beyond their destination.

In his domestic affairs, Mr. Huntington has been sorely afflicted. In July, 1845, he was mar- ried to Miss Amelia, daughter of Harvey Tomlin- son, of Geneva, New York. In 1856, he was called upon to mourn her death. Of their three children, but one survives-Mary Isabella, who is now the wife of Edward L. Higgins, ex-Adjutant of Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Higgins have four chil- dren, and reside at Springfield, Illinois. Mr. Huntington's two sons, Edwin and William, died in childhood, of scarlet fever. He was again mar- ried, in 1866, to Mary Goodrich, of Chicago, whose death occurred on the 16th of April, 1890, at the age of sixty years. The death of his sons and of his first wife occurred during his absence from home, and was more trying on this account.

Mr. Huntington has been for many years a mein- ber of the Masonic order, being connected with Bloomington Lodge. He is Secretary and Treas- urer of the Conductors' Mutual Aid Association, which he helped to organize in 1874. In early life, he was a Whig, and supported the candidacy of William H. Harrison in 1840, though not old enough to vote at that time. Since 1860 he has been a Republican. Before leaving New York, he served as Deputy Sheriff of Yates County, and the State still owes him for a tedious trip which he made in securing a requisition from the gov- ernor of New York and serving the same on the governor of Pennsylvania, in securing and bring- ing to justice a notorious thief. While a boy, he visited Baltimore and witnessed the operation of the first telegraph line in the world, which had just been completed. He is now the oldest employee of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, in point of service.

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

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C .M. Henderson.

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C. M. HENDERSON.

CHARLES M. HENDERSON.

HARLES MATHER HENDERSON, a rep- reseutative business man and exemplary citi- zen of Chicago, a scion of the old Puritan stock, was born in New Hartford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, and is a son of James F. Henderson and Sabrina (Marsh) Henderson, both natives of the "Land of Steady Habits." His paternal grandmother, in maidenhood, bore the name of Mather, being a lineal descendant of Cot- ton Mather, the noted Puritan divine and author, of Massachusetts colony. His maternal grand- father, Roswell Marsh, was a Revolutionary sol- dier and witnessed the execution of the uufortu- nate Major Andre.

The first fifteen years of C. M. Henderson's life were passed in the usual manner of urban New England boys of that period, during which time he was a pupil in the district school of his native village. After attending the Baptist School at Suffield one year, he went out, at the age of sixteen years, to teach a district school, in which undertaking he acquitted himself with credit, re- turning at the end of one term to his studies at Suffield, where he continued another year. His tastes and ambition pointed to a commercial career, and when, in 1853, an uncle in Chicago offered him a position in the wholesale boot and shoe house of C. N. Henderson & Co., he promptly accepted. He was then eighteen years of age, and was installed as general clerk and salesman. Applying himself diligently in both store and of- fice, wherever his services were most needed, he rapidly acquired a general knowledge of the busi- ness, and shortly became very useful to his em- ployers. So rapid was his advancement that in less than four years after entering the establish- ment he became a partner in it, in which connec- tion he continued until the death of his uncle in 1859.

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Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, 8th ed., Part 56

Author: Calumet Book & Engraving Company, Chicago Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Chicago : Calumet Book and Engraving Co. Number of Pages: 930

Author: Calumet Book & Engraving Company, Chicago
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Chicago : Calumet Book and Engraving Co.
Number of Pages: 930