USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume III > Part 18
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Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, Mexico and the Latin Americas, and manufactures type in all modern languages.
Besides being president of this great business, botli domestic and foreign, founded more than forty years ago by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler, Arthur M. Barnhart is president of the Great Western Type Foundry Company, of Kansas City, Missouri, and of the Great Western Building Company of the same city, as well as a director in the National Type and Paper Company, of New York, whose operations extend to Mexico, Cuba and the Latin Americas, in whose important cities large stocks of goods are on sale. Mr. Barnhart is also a director in the following corporations: Barnhart Type Foundry, New York; Minnesota Type Foundry, St. Paul, Minnesota ; Great Western Type Foundry, Omaha, Nebraska; Great Western Type Foundry, Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis Printers' Supply Company, St. Louis, Missouri; Barnhart Type Foundry, Dallas, Texas; Southern Printers' Supply Company, Washington, District of Columbia, and the Pacific Printers' Supply Company, Seattle, Washington. It will thus be seen that Mr. Barnhart's interests in the great field of printers' supplies are world-wide.
Mr. Barnhart has shown his breadth of character by maintaining, through the years of his residence in Chicago, a deep interest in many of its public movements. He is on the board of governors of the Chicago Art Institute ; is a member of the Municipal Art League, and long served on the advisory board of the Civic Federation, and on the executive committee of the Legislative Voters' League. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is a trustee of Wesley Hospital, St. James Methodist Epis- copal church and member of the Methodist Social Union, and is also a member of the Press, Union League, City, Chicago Athletic, Cliff Dwellers, Glen View, Homewood, South Shore Country, Kenwood Country and Quadrangle clubs.
Mr. Barnhart has been a successful business man all his life, has an enviable reputation for business ability and integrity, and is now enjoying the full fruits of an active and honorable career. He has always maintained an able and conscientious force of em- ployes about him, who have been educated up to his ideals of clean business methods. It is a fact that no business house in this country
Barnhart Bros. & Spindler
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FOUNDR
SUPERIOR ITYPE COPPER MIXED
1
Outra
-187- Barnhart Bros. & Spindler -183-
BARNHART BROS. & SPINDLER PLANT
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LENOX AND TILLEN FOUNDATIONA R L
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stands higher for fair and square dealing than Barnhart Brothers & Spindler.
Benjamin F. Homer, president of the Hodge & Homer Co., is one of the oldest and most successful hardware merchants in Chicago.
BENJAMIN F. HOMER. He is a native of Granville, Washington county, New York, born on the 19th of February, 1834, being a son of Zenas and Rhoda (Beach) Homer. His father was a Massachusetts man, while his mother was a native of Litchfield county, Connecticut. When a boy Benjamin F. accom- panied his parents to the western part of the state, where he first received a common school education and afterward pursued a course of two years in the Wyoming Academy. At the age of eighteen he was so well advanced that he became a teacher in the public school at Warsaw, New. York, but after engaging a year in that field re- turned to the familiar occupation of farming. He was thus engaged until 1860, when, in company with a cousin, he entered the drug trade at Warsaw. Shortly afterward he bought his partner's interest, and for eight years conducted a successful business alone.
Profitably disposing of his drug business in Warsaw, Mr. Homer came to Chicago, and May 15, 1868, bought an interest in the hard- ware store of Morris, Hodge & Co., and about two years later Mr. Morris sold out to his partners. The firm thereby became Hodge & Homer, and in 1890 the business was incorporated under the style of the Hodge & Homer Company, of which Mr. Homer has been president since its incorporation. The house has reached a high state of prosperity and reputation, its business embracing large transac- tions in builders' hardware, mechanics' supplies, machinery, agricul- tural implements, cutlery and similar goods. Besides being at the head of this extensive concern, Mr. Homer is a director of the Prairie State Bank, and is interested in other financial and business institu- tions.
In 1857 Mr. Homer was married at Richfield, New York, to Miss Emeline C. Firman, a native of that place, and the two children born to them are Florence Elizabeth and Fred Matthews Homer, the latter being engaged with his father in business. The family resi- dence has been in Evanston for many years. The elder Homer has long been a leader in the work of the Congregational church. For many years he was a member of the Union Park Congregational Vol. III-12.
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church, and for a decade was a trustee and deacon of the Evanston First Congregational church. He is also identified with the Congre- gational Club and the New England Society. Mr. Homer cast his first vote for the Republican party, which was organized the year after he attained his majority, and he has remained a member of the great political organization ever since.
For twenty years an active and successful commission merchant in grain, and one of the leading members of the Chicago Board of
JOHN Trade, John Hill, Jr., has acquired prominence HILL, JR. within the past decade as a vigorous opponent of bucket shops and all illegal trading. He is a native of Peru, Illinois, born on the 23rd of November, 1856, son of John and Elizabeth (Donahue) Hill. Being brought by his parents to Chicago when a child of five years, he was educated in the public schools of the city, and at the age of sixteen years entered the office of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, being connected with the cashier's department for four years. In 1876 Mr. Hill became identified with the grain commission house of McLandburgh & Co., and continued in their employ for some five years. In 1879 he had been elected to membership on the Board of Trade, and in 1881 established a business of his own. During this period of his career, which terminated in 1897. he became known as one of the most energetic, straightforward and able members of the Board, and for the last eight years of his active participation in its transactions he was a member of the firm of McCourtie, Hill & Co.
In 1892 Mr. Hill was first elected a director of the Chicago Board of Trade, and was re-elected in 1895, serving as chairman of the Bucket Shop committee in 1896-8. In the meantime his able and effective opposition to irregular trading had attracted earnest atten- tion, which extended over the city and even beyond. The demand for his services in the efforts of good citizens to suppress gambling in all its forms became so insistent and general, that in 1897 he with- drew entirely from business on the board of trade to devote himself to this field of reform. In 1896 he had been chosen chairman of the committee on gambling of the Civic Federation of Chicago, and up to the present time has been one of the best known figures in the west engaged in the anti-gambling crusade. In 1905 he estab-
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lished Hill's National Reporting Company, which furnishes commer- cial information to bankers, brokers, and investors, and has already developed an extensive business in its specialty.
In May, ISSI, Mr. Hill married Miss Nellie M. Graham, daugh- ter of Charles H. and Dorothy (Douglas) Graham, and the two chil- dren born to their union are Dorothy and Jessie. The family resi- dence is at No. 6049 Kimbark avenue. Mr. Hill is identified with the Masonic fraternity, and is a popular as well as a noteworthy member of the community.
Augustus Alvord Carpenter, one of the founders of the vast lumber trade of Chicago and the northwest and a citizen who for
AUGUSTUS A. more than forty-five years has also been a prac-
CARPENTER. tical supporter of the higher life of the western metropolis, is now retired from business, and in his eighty-third year, he is justly entitled to the rest and recreation of a successful, veteran and honored member of the com- munity. Mr. Carpenter has had the wisdom to devote much of his time and means to the furtherance of those municipal reforms which, in spite of all outside detractions, have maintained the standing of Chicago as an advanced metropolis of the world. He has been thereby wise, for he has added to his remarkable business career the honor of disinterested and elevated citizenship.
Augustus Alvord Carpenter is a native of Chateaugay, Franklin county, New York, born on the 8th of June, 1825, son of Alanson and Guiaelma (Nichols) Carpenter. His earlier years were spent upon the home farm and in the district schools of his neighborhood, and at the age of seventeen he commenced a career extending over a decade, which was an experimental period of his life devoted to farming and general merchandising in the Empire state. In 1852, with his brother, he joined the California gold seekers by the ocean and isthmus route. While on the coast for three years he engaged both in mining and trading, most of this period being spent at Rose's bar, on the Yuba river near Marysville. In 1855 he returned to the east and soon afterward settled at Monroe, Wisconsin, where he engaged in the dry goods and cattle business for the succeeding four years.
When the effects of the panic of 1857 had virtually subsided, Mr Carpenter entered into the field of operations of which for so many
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years he was one of the great masters of the northwest. In 1859, with his brother William O., he established a retail lumber yard at Monroe, and in the following year the two purchased an interest in the business of Kirby and Stephenson, who were then operating a mulay mill at Menominee, Michigan, and a retail yard at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The members of the original firm were Abner Kirby, a pioneer of the Cream City, and S. M. Stephenson, of Menominee, who afterward became one of the largest lumbermen in the north- west and very prominent in Michigan politics. The addition of the Carpenter brothers changed the firm name to Kirby, Carpenter & Company, which in 1872 was incorporated under Illinois laws as "The Kirby-Carpenter Company," and notwithstanding that Mr. Kirby withdrew in 1880, the corporate name remains the same and Augustus A. Carpenter is still president of the company. The original mill at Menominee consisted of a single saw, with a yearly capacity of 2,000,000 feet, and the first stock of the incorporated company amounted to $500,000, with a surplus of $362,000 and timber re- sources of 400,000,000 feet. In the early nineties three large mills were in operation with a cutting capacity of 115,000,000 feet per year ; the surplus had reached $3.871,000 and the company held some 800,000,000 feet of standing timber. About a thousand men were employed on an average, and a large grist mill was constantly run- ning to supply feed for the 400 horses and mules used in the various departments. In addition, there was a planing mill and several dry kilns, and the vast lumber yards in Chicago formed a leading feature of the city's industries.
In 1862 Mr. Carpenter took up his residence in Chicago and soon afterward a lumber yard was opened at the junction of the north branch with the main river, and soon much of the Milwaukee trade was attracted to this point. At the outset the sales amounted to about 10,000,000 feet per annum. In 1868 a new mill was erected, its capacity increased from time to time, and in 1892 the sales at the Chicago yards had reached 134,000,000 feet annually. From the time of his coming to Chicago Mr. Carpenter made this city the headquarters of all his interests, the manufacturing portion of which has been actively conducted at Menominee for many years. Long prior to that time a large yard was maintained in the lumber district
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of Twenty-second street, where the bulk of the mill product was sold to country dealers.
Mr. Carpenter was for many years a broad and active figure in the great lumber interests which center at Menominee, Michigan, and was one of the earliest and most successful developers of the mineral resources of the Superior region. For years he was presi- dent of the Lumbermen's Mining Company of Iron Mountain, Michi- gan; was for some time president of the Lumbermen's National Bank of Menominee, and was largely interested in the Electric Light Railway and Power Company of Menominee. In Chicago he became one of the incorporators of the Lumbermen's Exchange, was elected vice-president in 1876 and president in 1882, and served continuously on the executive committee until 1888.
Although Chicago was abandoned as a distributing point by the Kirby-Carpenter Company, it remained the executive and financial center of Mr. Carpenter's widely extended interests and he continued to be identified with the city in many lines of activity. He has served for many years as a director of the First National Bank of Chicago and has been president of the Citizens' Association, as well as of the Union and Commercial clubs of that city. In 1863 Mr. Carpenter was wedded to Miss Elizabeth K. Kempton, of New Bedford, Massa- chusetts, and the children born to them were: Augustus A. Carpen- ter, Jr., now prominently engaged in the lumber and tie business; and Amie, wife of Jolin E. Newell, a resident of Chicago.
Augustus A. Carpenter, Jr., who for years was one of the promi- nent members of the younger generation of lumbermen in the west, is a native of Chicago, born on the 9th of February,
AUGUSTUS A. CARPENTER, 1868, son of Augustus A. and Elizabeth (Kemp- ton) Carpenter. His father is one of the business
JR. pioneers of the northwest, a founder both of its lumber trade and its mineral industries, having been a resident of Chicago since 1862 and a leader in both its commercial and civic development. In view of the wide influence of the elder man, his biographical record is published preceding this.
The junior Carpenter received his education in the private schools of Chicago, and when nineteen years of age entered the yard of the Kirby-Carpenter Company at Menominee, Michigan, to learn the business "from the bottom up." This was his literal experience, for
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he commenced his career at the bottom, gradually mastering all the details of sorting, piling and shipping, with the later responsibilities of superintendent of the mills, and finally those of general manager of the entire business. In 1896 he became associated with the Texas Tie and Lumber Preserving Company, of which he was the vice- president and manager. He held the same office with the Tonty Lumber Company, and in 1903 was elected vice-president of the Ayer & Lord Tie Company. At the present time Mr. Carpenter is also a director of the First National and Security banks of Chicago and president of the Grueby Faience Company of Boston, Massa- chusetts.
On November 17, 1897, Mr. Carpenter was married to Miss Alice Keith, and two children have been born to them, Keith and Alice Elizabeth Carpenter. The family residence is in Lake Forest, Illi- nois, and Mr. Carpenter has membership in the Onwentsia, Saddle and Cycle, University and Chicago clubs.
George Tyler Burroughs, president of the American Battery Com- pany, was born in Warren, Massachusetts, on the 13th of October, 1833, being a son of Abner Tyler and Mary ( Rice)
GEORGE T.
BURROUGHS. Burroughs. He obtained his education entirely in the Old Bay state-first, in the public schools of his native town, then at Munson Academy and finally at Quaboag Acad- emy, the last named also a Warren institution. At the outbreak of the Civil war he joined the Union forces as a private of the Seventy-first Regiment, New York State Militia, and thus served at the first battle of Bull Run. At the first and second engagements at Fredericksburg he served on the general brigade staff at headquarters. Later he enlisted in the Forty-third Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, was elected first lieutenant, and before the conclusion of the war Mr. Burroughs had been promoted successively to captain, assistant con- missary of subsistence, staff captain and brevet major.
In 1868 Mr. Burroughs came to Chicago and engaged in business as a distiller of alcohol and spirits, distilling and rectifying under the name of the Phoenix Distilling Company and Abel Ames & Co. He was thus engaged for twenty-seven years, or until 1895. For the last two years of this period he had been identified with the American Storage Battery Company, and in 1896 was elected president of the company.
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On February 23, 1863. Mr. Burroughs was united in marriage with Miss Mary Evelyn Zieger, of Columbus City, Iowa, and the fol- lowing are their children : George Tyler, Jr., Henry Studley, Frank Coleman and Edgar Rice. The family residence is at No. 493 Jack- son boulevard. In politics Mr. Burroughs is a Republican. He is a Mason of the Knight Templar degree, and a charter member of the Loyal Legion, a member of an Illinois club and of George H. Thomas Post, No. 5, G. A. R.
Those who are familiar with the details of the operations of the
JAMES H. ASHBY.
great Chicago stock yards are ready to admit that their superintendence
JAMES H. must involve executive ability of the highest order,
ASHBY. while those who are more thoroughly posted are filled with admiration at the clock-like regularity and facility with which business is transacted through them. The strong and active brain of James H. Ashby is largely responsible for this remarkable work, of which he has been in charge for twenty years, as superintendent of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company.
James H. Ashby is a native of the Empire state, born in Dutchess
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county, on the 17th of November, 1847. He is a son of James N. and Sarah (Van Benschoten) Ashby, and remained with his parents upon the home farm until 1880. In the year named he came to Chicago and entered the employ of the Union Stock Yards as yardmaster, a position he held for about six years. In 1886 he was appointed as- sistant superintendent, but so readily proved his ability in that posi- tion that in the following year he was advanced to the superintendency. He not only holds that position, but is president and director of the North Avenue Manufacturing Company and Amity Building and Loan Association, and director of the Live Stock Exchange National Bank, Stock Yards Savings Bank and Union Rendering Company.
In 1872 Mr. Ashby was united in marriage with Miss Maria S. Rogers, of Dutchess county, New York, and their residence is at No. 361 Oakwood boulevard. Mr. Ashby is fond of driving and all forms of outdoor recreation, being a member of the Kenwood, South Shore Country, Saddle and Sirloin, and the Gentlemen's Driving clubs, the last named an organization of Wheaton, Illinois. In politics, he is an independent Republican.
Alfred Landon Baker, senior member of the firm of Alfred L. Baker & Co., stock and bond brokers, is a native of Boston, Massachu-
setts, born on the 30th of April, 1859, his parents
ALFRED L. BAKER. being Addison and Maria (Mudge) Baker. He was educated in Lynn, Massachusetts, graduating from the local high school in 1876. . After studying law in the office of George W. Smith, of Boston, in 1881 he was admitted to the bar of Essex county. At first he formed a partnership with John R. Bald- win, and under the firm name of Baldwin and Baker practiced his profession in Lynn for some three years. During this period of his career he served as a member both of the city council and school board, and was interested in public enterprises of every kind.
In 1886 Mr. Baker became a resident of Chicago, associating him- self with Louis M. Greeley and, as senior member of the firm, Baker and Greeley, engaging successfully in the practice of law until 1895, when he retired to enter the financial field.
Since the year above named Mr. Baker has been either a banker, or a stock and bond broker. He at once became a member of the Chicago Stock Exchange, and later of the Chicago Board of Trade and the New York Stock Exchange. In January, 1899, he was joined
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by Solomon Sturges and Hugh McB. Johnston in the formation of the present firm of Alfred L. Baker & Co., which has always been one of the prominent stock brokerage firms of the city. From 1898 to 1900 inclusive, Mr. Baker served as president of the Chicago Stock Exchange, and personally is widely known and honored. He is popu- lar socially, and is a member in such standard organizations as the Chicago, Union League and University clubs, and was for five years president of the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest; also president of the Merchants' Club in 1905. He is vice president of the National City Bank.
Mr. Baker's wife was formerly Miss Mary Corwith, of Chicago, to whom he was married in 1894, and two daughters have been born to them, Isabelle and Mary. The family residence is at Lake Forest. Illinois.
Myron Jay Carpenter, president of the' La Grange Stone Com- pany, saw service for many years as a railway employe and official.
MYRON J. He is a native of Illinois, born in Caledonia, on the 12th of April, 1850. When he was nineteen years CARPENTER. of age he commenced his railroad career as a tele- . graphic operator with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. Subsequently he served as cashier and still later as agent of the Chicago & North-Wetsern Railway Company, at Chicago, this period of his career covering fourteen years. He was then advanced to the division superintendency of the Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City Railway, and in 1888 he became general manager, and in 1889 president of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad.
In 1892 Mr. Carpenter was chosen president of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway, remaining at the head of its affairs for ten years, and from 1902 until September, 1904, he held the office of vice president and general manager of the Pere Marquette Railroad Com- pany. In 1906 he purchased the business of the La Grange Stone Company, of which he is the president and owner.
Mr. Carpenter's wife was formerly Miss Rebecca Whittlesey, daughter of Rev. John E. Whittlesey. Her father was a native of New Britain, Connecticut, was educated in the east, and at an early day went to Iowa as a home missionary. Mrs. Carpenter has naturally taken a deep and active interest in mission work. Mr. Carpenter has been a strong and constant factor in the activities of the Young Men's
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Christian Association, especially in the railway branch of the work, and is a director and assistant treasurer of the Chicago Central Young Men's Christian Association. He is a member of the Chicago Club, and his home is at La Grange, one of Chicago's most attractive sub- urbs.
George Mackensie Brill, consulting mechanical and electrical engi- neer, has been actively engaged in his profession since his graduation
GEORGE M. from the engineering department of Cornell Univer-
BRILL. sity in 1891. with the degree of M. E. From 1891 to 1896 he was Engineer of Tests for the Solvay Process Company at Syracuse, New York; was chief engineer Solvay Process Company, Detroit, Michigan. 1896-97: was general engineer with Swift & Co., 1897 to 1900, and since the latter date has been located in Chicago practicing as consulting engineer.
Mr. Brill, whose career as an engineer may be said to have begun with the period of most phenomenal development in technical profes- sions, and whose fifteen years of successful experience gives him a place of prominence in his line, was born in Poughquag, New York, March 24, 1866, a son of Thomas and Mary Jane (Hurd) Brill, his lineage being Dutch on the paternal and Scotch on the maternal. After a common school education he attended Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and later entered Cornell University.
Mr. Brill is a member of the American Society of Mechanical En- gineers, being manager of the same from 1904 to 1907. He is a fel- low of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. and a member of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Edu- cation, and of the Western Society of Engineers. Also a member of the Union League Club and Engineers' Club of Chicago, and the Columbia Club of Indianapolis. His wife, to whom he was married June 1, 1892, was Achsah Angeline Quick. They have three children, Elliot M., Meredith and Roland. Their home is 6613 Harvard ave- nue. Mr. Brill's office is in the Marquette building.
John Joseph Stream, widely known for his prominence in the grain and elevator business, is a native of Chicago, born on the Ist of Feb-
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