USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume III > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Mr. Bouton has been twice married, first to Miss Emily L. Bissell, daughter of Dr. Bissell, of Suffield, Connecticut, who died in 1858, about a year after their union. His present wife was Mrs. Ellen Shumway, daughter of Judge Gould, of Essex, New York.
The manufacturer who concentrates his energies upon any device which really redounds to the development or smooth working of the
MORRIS railroad is sure of a fine issue from his labors. It
SELLERS. would seem that Morris Sellers, president of the Sellers Manufacturing Company, has achieved some signal results in the construction and maintenance of railways, adding to their durability and the safety of the traveling public. From his long personal experience and extensive observation as manager, as well as through his contact with railway officials, he became aware of the then existing practice of splicing the ends of rails together in track laying, and in 1879 devised and began the manufacture of what afterward became widely known as the Samson Splice Bar. In this device the angle bar was rolled with a reinforcement in the center, giv- ing the greatest admissible stiffness at the immediate junction of the rails, thereby absorbing the wave line of deflection and carrying it through to the immediate joint specially provided to receive it. Thus the rail became as nearly as possible continuous, and the joint which brought this desideratum about was placed on many thousands of miles of tracks and is still widely used. The next important achieve- ment was the designing and manufacture of the Anchor Tie Plate, which is imposed between the rail and wooden tie, preventing the latter from being cut or abraded by the action of the rail. This plate does not cut into and destroy the tie, but presses into all the top fibers of the wood, thus effectively resisting the constant gauge-widening action of the track independent of the lateral resistance of the spikes. A vertical abutment extending the whole width of the plate outside the rail pre- vents the rail from cutting the spike, and absolutely precludes the spreading of the rails. so destructive and fatal to life and property. Two plants-one on Chicago avenue, this city, and the other at May- fair-are now running to their full capacity in the manufacture of these splice bars and tie plates, which are used by many of the lead-
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR L YOU AND SILDEN FOUNDATION%
IO21
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
ing roads in the United States, especially those of the north and west whose geographical situation compels them to use the soft wood so easily obtainable in their sections of the country. The active manage- ment of these plants is in the able hands of John M. Sellers, son of Morris Sellers, and whose official position is vice president and general manager of the company.
. Morris Sellers is a Philadelphian, born on the 14th of November. 1832, being the son of Charles and Elizabeth ( Morris) Sellers, and comes of a Quaker family, whose forebear, John Sellers, came from England with William Penn in 1682. The founder of the family in America was one of the most expert mechanics of his time, and his talents have descended through succeeding generations, several mem- bers of this particular branch having achieved national and interna- tional reputations. The head of this branch, John Sellers, the fifth from the emigrant, was the great-great-grandfather of Morris Sellers. and a man of large influence in the affairs of the colony of Pennsyl- vania. He was a prominent lawyer and, in view of his standing both in his profession and the community. was chosen chairman of the committee which drafted the constitution of the state of Pennsylvania, nis being the first name signed to that document. At the ter- mination of the Revolutionary war, he served as a member of the first senate of the Keystone state. During the progress of the struggle he was one of the leaders in the patriot cause, and his son, Nathan Sellers, early joined the Pennsylvania militia of the Continental army, saw active military service as an officer and rendered other signal aid. He was a lawyer and an engineer, as well as a patriot, and the promptness and versatility of his character are illustrated in an incident herewith given .. At one stage of the Revolution, the country was so drained of its paper supply that Washington himself was obliged to use blank leaves torn from an old ledger in order to send his dispatches to Con- gress. Nathan Sellers happened to remark that he believed he could make paper, and Washington sent him at once to York, Pennsylvania, with a detachment of troops, for the purpose of seeing what could be done with an old paper mill which had been destroyed by the British. Mr. Sellers repaired the plant and restocked the country with the paper, which was in pressing demand; the family still having in its possession sheets bearing the water mark N S. After the war Nathan Sellers devoted his abilities to the utilization of the water power fur-
I022
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
nished by the streams in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and constructed a canal from that city to Bristol, Pennsylvania. He built many dams and small mills on those streams, among them a sawmill, foundry, forge and machine shop on his father's property, getting his power from Cobb's creek-then separating Philadelphia from Delaware county, but now within the city limits and known as Cardington.
In this plant and under the name of Coleman Sellers and Sons, were afterward manufactured wool carding machines, paper mill ma- chines, hand fire and steam engines, and (in the later thirties ) several locomotives for the Pennsylvania state roads. These last were among the first locomotives built in the United States in competition with the English makes. Dr. Coleman Sellers, the uncle of Morris, was another famous engineer of the family, and in some respects the most eminent. After a long life of distinguished services in the fields of mechanics and physics he placed the noble capsheaf upon his career by planning the system for the utilization of the electric power to be derived from that vast mechanical agent, Niagara Falls. He was born January 28. 1827, and died at his home in Philadelphia, on the 19th of December, 1907. He was a grandson of the Nathan Sellers mentioned above, and had inherited the tendency of five generations of ancestors dis- tinguished for ability in mechano-physics. It is not surprising that he was an inventor at seventeen; that he left the farm and became con- nected with the Globe Rolling Mills at nineteen; that he afterward became a chief partner in the Philadelphia machine works of William Sellers & Co., and retired in 1888 to become a consulting engineer and work out the great problem of harnessing the falls of Niagara for electrical purposes. He was the American representative on the In- ternational Niagara Commission of five members, composed of some of the foremost scientists of the world, but eventually his ideas prevailed and the actual realization of the dream was brought about through him.
To return to Morris Sellers, the nephew of this distinguished and lovable man, it should be stated that when his father, Charles, and uncle, George E., removed to Cincinnati in 1840, the boy was only eight years of age. He received his education in the public schools of that city and at Woodward College, and afterward joined his father in his various enterprises connected with the manufacture of iron and steel, the principal of which was the Globe Iron Rolling Mills. This
1023
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
was founded by Charles Sellers, the father, who attached to it the first wire-drawing plant west of the Alleghanies, which made the wire for Professor Morse's second telegraph line-that between Cincinnati and Columbus. One of the duties of young Morris Sellers was to solder together the wire, which was manufactured in sections. His father also established an iron furnace in middle Tennessee to make pig iron for the Cincinnati market, employing slave labor to utilize tlie ore and timber (charcoal) obtained from a large tract of land which he had there purchased. This enterprise proved a failure, as it was much cheaper to float pig iron down the Ohio river than to steamboat it up from the mouth of the Cumberland. The elder Sellers was then engaged by Duff Green, editor of the Congressional Globe, Washing- ton, to assist him in his grand scheme of so utilizing the mineral de- posits of the south as to make that section of the country quite indepen- dent of the north so far as concerned its requirements for railroad and industrial development. This gigantic plan failed for lack of financial support, the only practical result being the development of the town of Dalton, Georgia, which was virtually owned by Mr. Green. Young Sellers was employed in the sawmill which was here erected, and was also engaged in establishing the grades and platting various streets in that place. Finding no further occupation in that locality, the youth obtained a position on the old Georgia state railroad, running between Atlanta and Chattanooga, but, anxious to return to the north, he joined the construction force of the Bellefontaine & Indiana Railroad, then being built between Galion and Marion, Ohio. He afterward ran the first passenger locomotive on the line, being taken off his engine to install the machinery in the Galion repair shops, then the largest and most complete plant of the kind west of Cleveland.
In the winter of 1854-5, when twenty-two years of age, Mr. Sellers obtained a position as a locomotive engineer on the Michigan Central Railroad, and in that capacity hauled a gravel train in the filling of the lake front for the site of the old passenger depot at the foot of Ran- dolph street. Shortly afterward he was transferred to Michigan City, where he was placed in charge of the repair shops of the road on the division from that city to Chicago. While in this position, unsanitary conditions and hard work undermined his health, and his desire for a change resulted in his appointment as master mechanic and assistant superintendent of the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad, but upon the
1024
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
sale of that road to the Burlington system, and not desiring to accept a subordinate position, he accepted the responsibilities of the foreman- ship in charge of all passenger engines between Pittsburg and Harris- burg. on the Pennsylvania road, being alone responsible to the traffic department. In 1860 the longing to return to the west so mastered him that he resigned his position to become assistant superintendent and master mechanic of the new road known as the Des Moines Val- ley, to run from Keokuk to Ottumwa (Iowa), and under his manage- ment the line was extended to Des Moines and Fort Dodge. It was subsequently incorporated into the Rock Island system.
Mr. Sellers was employed in these labors until 1871, when George Westinghouse, who had invented his air brake and was struggling to introduce it to the railroad world, decided that what he most needed in his work was a man who was thoroughly conversant with the phy- sical operations of a railroad in all its details, and he therefore offered Mr. Sellers the position of his general sales agent. The selection re- sulted in having the brake placed on ninety per cent of all the roads in the United States within three years from the commencement of operations under the new management. That having been accom- plished, and after refusing several flattering offers from eastern rail- roads, Mr. Sellers decided to locate in Chicago and establish an inde- pendent business along the lines with which he was so thoroughly con- versant. Upon his return to this city in 1875 he opened an office in the Ashland block as representative of the four prominent Pittsburg concerns-the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, Pittsburg Locomo- tive Works, Union Forge and Iron Company, and the A. French El- liptical Springs Company-each of whom paid a nominal salary, with the privilege of engaging in any other business that did not conflict with theirs. In the year following his coming to Chicago Mr. Sellers established the manufacturing business of Morris Sellers & Co., and built a rolling mill for the manufacture of the angle splice bar, in 1894 the business being incorporated under its present style. Sellers Manu- facturing Company. Mr. Sellers has also been prominently interested in the Hewitt Manufacturing Company and the Chicago Drop Forge and Foundry Company, having served as president of each and as director in the Harvey Steel Car and Land Association. Further, he was a director and one of the committee charged with the great work
1025
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
of constructing the Grant Locomotive Works, formerly occupied by the Siemens and Halske Company.
Mr. Sellers has been twice married-first, to Miss Amanda Patter- son in 1854. who died leaving one daughter, now Mrs. P. A. Largey ; and secondly, to Miss Rosa McCune, by whom he had the following children : John M., Blanche, Mrs. Rudolph Ortmann, and Elizabeth M., now Mrs. Horace C. Hutchins. Mr. Sellers has never been a club man, as to social matters, but is very fond of out-door sports and an especially enthusiastic hunter, being a member of the Nee-Pee-Naul Shooting Club of Wisconsin and Swan Lake Shooting Club of Illinois. This life-long participation in out-door activities has kept him in vigor- ous mental and physical health, and it is hard to realize that Mr. Sel- lers is a Chicago pioneer who saw the city fifty-four years ago. He then came hither in the employ of the Michigan Central Railroad with his young wife and infant daughter, and after staying for a short time at the "American Hotel," corner of Wabash avenue and Lake, went to board with his family at the house of Probate Judge Henry L. Rucker, northeast corner of Dearborn and Monroe. But, deciding that the country air would be better for his wife and little one, he rent- ed a cottage near the northwest corner of Wabash avenue and Six- teenth street and adjoining the St. Charles branch railroad. By mnak- ing this move the family was quite isolated, for there was but one house south of the Sellers cottage to Twenty-second street, all open prairie on which the cattle grazed, with what is now Wabash avenue terminating in a dairy farm; and north, between that road and Wel- don station, at Twelfth street, was a fine, lusty corn field. The state- ment of such facts as these is a forcible reminder of the marvelous progress of Chicago, of which Mr. Sellers has been not only a fascinat- ed spectator but an active factor. It is also a suggestive illustration of the strides which the United States has taken as a nation to remem- ber that in his person is a direct historic link between Morse's first crude telegraph lines and the vast and complicated systems which now make the world vibrant with life and intelligence. Mr. Sellers' career is also a marked illustration of the strong influence of ancestral traits in bringing success to any given individual, and of the wisdom of choosing a field which is connected with the development of some such agent of civilization as the railroads, than which, in America, there has been none greater.
1026
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Now nearing his seventy-seventh year, in his sixtieth year of unin- terrupted work as a professional civil engineer and for forty-four
DON J. years chief engineer of the Chicago, Milwaukee &
St. Paul Railway Company, Don Juan Whittemore WHITTEMORE. is one of the finest figures connected with the pro- fession in the United States. He is not only grand in the wonderful faithfulness with which he has devoted himself to his work, but in his continued originality and breadth of view. In private intercourse and in public acknowledgment his eminence has been repeatedly and warmly acknowledged. Coming into the field of practice long before the engineering schools of the country as they are known today were even planned, he finally accomplished professional work of such en- during worth and originality that even the younger generation of engineers were eager to honor him, as well as universities of high standing in several states of the country.
In 1884 Mr. Whittemore was honored by the American Society of Civil Engineers with the presidency of that organization, and the University of Vermont (his native state) has conferred upon him the title of Civil Engineer, while the University of Wisconsin (the state with which he is most prominently identified, both by long residence and pioneer work) has recognized his scientific attainments by hon- oring him with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Besides the im- portant influence which he has wielded for many years in the Ameri- can Society of Civil Engineers he had been conspicuously identified with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Western Society of Engineers, having also a life membership in the Institution of Civil Engineers of England. Mr. Whittemore's international standing was emphasized in 1889, when about two hundred and fifty representative American engineers of various classes visited England, France and Germany, and he was selected as chairman of the delega- tion. Upon this occasion he formed a friendship with Professor Tyndall which was of firm and lifelong duration. As vice-chairman of the World's Congress of Engineers at the Columbian Exposition Mr. Whittemore received another notable honor. A pleasing and ready writer, he has been a frequent and valued contributor to the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and has also taken a part in several noteworthy discussions.
Of those which attracted the widest attention both among engi-
1027
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
neers and railroad magnates was the discussion of his paper reported in the Transactions and numbered 730, the aim of the author being to prove from the works of nature that man's general plan in making railway excavations and embankments in right line planes, instead of in general curves, violates all the lessons of nature and is obliged to pay for in large expenditure of dollars and cents. Immediately after the line of railway is opened for traffic the ditching train is called into service to remove the slush washed down from the abrupt embankments. Mr. Whittemore proposed to sod his sloping embank- ments, and pave and tile his ditches. His suggestions were enthusi- astically approved by such engineers as J. F. Wallace, who testified that he knew of cases where it required as great an expenditure to maintain a good roadbed through excavations as it originally cost to make the cuts, due to the sloughing in of the sides, the filling up of the ditches and the imperfect drainage caused thereby.
Mr. Whittemore is as well known as a pioneer of the American cement industry as in connection with Wisconsin and northwestern railroads. About 1874 his attention was called to the hydraulic properties of the water-lime rock along the Milwaukee river, and as the result of tests made under his supervision was formed the Mil- waukee Cement Company. The original works were built in 1876 and rebuilt in 1893. while a second plant was placed in operation in 1889. Mr. Whittemore was a director of the company until 1891, when he resigned to become one of the founders of the Western Portland Cement Company, of which he is still vice-president. He was a member of the committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers which prepared the famous report on a uniform system of cement tests.
Mr. Whittemore has been a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers since 1872, of the Institution of Civil Engineers since 1885, and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers since 1889.
The main facts in the life of Don J. Whittemore are that he was born in Milton, Vermont, on the 6th of December, 1830, and is of the seventh generation from Thomas Whittemore, who came from Hitchin, an ancient market town in Hertfordshire, near London, about the year 1640, and settled in that part of Malden which is now Everett, Massachusetts. In 1645 he was the owner of a farm on the
1028
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
western border of Chelsea, which remained in possession of his de- scendants until 1845, a period of two hundred years. Albert Gallatin Whittemore married Abby Clark, also of English ancestry, and Don J. Whittemore was the second son of this union. He was educated by his father and at Bakersfield Academy until he was seventeen years of age, when he left school and became connected with the engineering corps of the Vermont & Canada Railroad Company. He so rapidly advanced that when he was only nineteen years of age he was ap- pointed assistant engineer of the company, having charge of the con- struction of the line between Swanton, Vermont, and Rouse's Point, New York. As assistant engineer of the Great Western Railway of Canada, he next had charge of the construction of a division of that line, and retained that position until the death of his father in 1852. The latter was largely interested in the Central Ohio Railway, and was accidentally killed while inspecting a bridge on the section which was being constructed between Zanesville, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia. Don J. Whittemore therefore resigned his position with the Canadian road to look after his father's interests in the Central Ohio, and while thus engaged became contractor's engineer on the latter railroad.
This proved the entrance of Mr. Whittemore into the field of rail- road construction northwest of the Ohio river, and in 1853 he was appointed assistant to the chief engineer of the LaCrosse & Milwau- kee Railroad Company, which was afterward merged into the Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system. At the conclusion of four years of construction work on the line mentioned he resigned to accept a chief engineership with the Southern Minnesota Railroad, locating about two hundred and fifty miles of its line within the succeeding two years. Work was then suspended. as on so many other experi- mental lines in the northwest in those days, and in 1859 Mr. Whitte- more went to Cuba to recuperate from the effects of his hardships in the wilderness of that section of the United States. After acting as assistant chief engineer of the Western Cuba Railroad for about a year he returned to his work in Wisconsin, becoming assistant chief engineer of the LaCrosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company in 1860 and continuing thus until 1864, when it was merged into the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system. With this great corporation, he entered upon a term of service as chief engineer, which has extended
1029
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
over a period of forty-three years, during which the company has developed one of the great railway systems of the world. His con- nection with matters of broad concern outside of his immediate pro- fessional duties have already been noted, as well as the standing he has acquired as an engineer of general fame and a scientist of great prominence. He is also chief engineer of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company of South Dakota and Montana, being a part of the line now being constructed to the Pacific coast.
Mr. Whittemore was wedded in 1883, at East Orange, New Jer- sey, to Miss Clara Clark, and one child, Fanny, has been born to their union. Although his official headquarters were removed to Chicago in 1891, he still considers Milwaukee his residence.
The late John Mohr was one of the pioneer iron workers of Chi- cago, and one of the foremost to develop boiler making as a great industrial specialty. He was a native of Germany,
JOHN MOHR. born March 14, 1826, and at his death, August 20, 1903. had been engaged in Chicago in various forms of iron manufactures for a period of more than half a century. The first sixteen years of his life were spent in the Fatherland, working upon the prosperous home farm and securing a good education in the neighborhood schools. He became especially well versed in mathe- matics, which fact was of great benefit to him in his subsequent career as a mechanic and manufacturer.
In 1842 John Mohr landed in New York, coming direct from his German home, and proceeding thence to Philadelphia, became en- gaged in marine transportation, making voyages for the exchange of produce between the leading seaboard towns of New England and Canada and various ports on the South American coast. Later he transferred the scene of similar operations to the Mississippi valley between St. Louis and New Orleans, and still later learned the black- smith's trade while a resident of Canada.
In 1848 Mr. Mohr located in Chicago, and, as temporary employ- ment, assumed the task of operating the old river ferry. A collision with a blundering freight vessel threw his craft out of water and himself out of business, as well as put a final period to his career of water transportation.
Mr. Mohr now entered the long phase of his life devoted to iron Vol. III-8.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.