USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of representative men of Chicago, Minnesota cities and the World's Columbian exposition : with illustrations on steel. V. 1 > Part 37
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Mr. Sawin married, in 1855, a most estimable lady, Miss Caroline L. Rust, daughter of Elijah C. Rust, of Jamesville, Onondaga county, N. Y.
In politics he has always been a Democrat. In religious belief he is an Episcopalian, lle is a Past Eminent Commander of Knights Templar.
As a business man he enjoys the confidence of all with whom he has to do, and for honest and manly dealing bears a character above reproach.
AARON BENEDICT MEAD,
CHICAGO, IL.L.
A ARON BENEDICT MEAD was born No- vember 7, 1838, in Franklinville, Cattar- augus county, New York, the son of Merlin and Polly (Clark) Mead. His father, an enterprising farmer, was an elder for fifty years in the Presby- terian Church, being one of the original members, and prominent in all the affairs of the town. A " true blue" Abolitionist, his house was one of the stations of the famous " Underground Railway." Mr. Mead was brought up on the farm, received his early education in the district schools and local academy until seventeen years of age, when, by invitation of an uncle, he went to Waterbury, Conn., and entered its high school, standing No. I in his class.
Upon leaving school he became a clerk in a dry goods store in Waterbury, receiving a salary of one hundred and seventy-six dollars per year. Determined to succeed, however, young Mead, by being economical in his habits, managed to save out of his salary twenty-five dollars the first year. But the firm failed. He next became a clerk in a crockery store in Hartford, Conn., at which place he remained until the breaking out of the late civil war.
In June, 1861, he enlisted in Company A, Tenn.
Fourth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, in- fantry, which afterwards was changed to the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery. The original enlistment for three months was changed to three years' service, the Government having all the three-months men it required.
This regiment was the first one filled, equipped and accepted for three years' service. Mr. Mead was with the regiment stationed around Washing- ton one year, when discharged on account of pneumonia, the discharge taking place at Coal Harbor. After recovering from his illness suffi- ciently to allow of his engaging in business again, he entered the real estate office of his uncle, Abner L. Ely, who at that time had, probably, the largest real estate agency in the city of New York. There Mr. Mead gained a thorough knowledge of the various details connected with the transfer and sale of real estate. In January, 1867, he removed to Chicago, which then gave considerable promise of a bright future, and opened a real estate office upon his arrival. His first fee was two dollars, which he received for drawing a contract for the sale of a farm, and this fee he donated to Fisk University, Nashville,
asmens
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In January, 1868, Mr. Mead formed a partner- ship with Albert L. Coe under the firm name of Mead & Coe, which partnership has continued to the present day (1892), being the oldest real estate firm in the city, and their business is one of the most successful and flourishing in this par- ticular line in Chicago. Carefully built up and under judicious management, it has grown rapidly from the commencement. Their clientage is of an extensive and substantial nature, no firm having a higher reputation than that of Mead & Coe.
Mr. Mead was married in September, 1868, to Miss Mary E. Packard, daughter of James B. and Sarah C. Packard. They have four children.
Mr. Mead is a member and deacon of the First
Congregational Church. Also treasurer of the Illinois Home Missionary Society, and a trustee of Illinois College at Jacksonville. In politics he is an ardent Republican. In the days of the war he was an Abolitionist, as was his father before him. Mr. Mead is a member of Geo. H. Thomas Post, No. 5, G. A. R.
He is a man of medium height, dark complex- ion and full beard, and in manner is genial and extremely affable and of a generous disposition. An energetic and enterprising business man, he is another of those who have contributed so largely to the building up the reputation which the City of Chicago to-day so ably sustains. As a public- spirited citizen, he is well known and esteemed.
MARTIN HOWARD,
CHICAGO, ILL.
T HE career of Martin Howard fairly illus- trates what one may accomplish who is actuated by an honest, manly purpose and a determination to make the most of his opportun- ities and abilities. Mr. Howard has made his business life successful because he has been will- ing to pay the price of success in whatever posi- tion he has been placed. He has, by earnest, honest effort, earned the favorable result that has come as his reward, and whenever special trusts have been imposed on him, he has proved true to them. When difficulties have arisen, he has stood steadfast, and with firm confidence in the right, worked till he has mastered them. Through the many difficult business problems that have come to his professional and business life, he has pressed steadily on, and by his straightforward course has won the respect and confidence of his asso- ciates and acquaintances. Added to his high social and moral qualities is an energy and force of character indispensable to him who would make for himself an honored name, and of him may truthfully be said, " he is the architect of his own fortunes."
Mr. Howard was born in 1840, at Rochester, New York, and when eleven years old removed, with his parents, Josiah and Eunice Howard, to Rock county, Wisconsin. Having early formed studious and industrious habits, he soon mastered
the lower branches of learning, and entered on a course of study in Wayland University, graduat- ing therefrom with honor in 1858, after which he began the study of law. Before he had completed his law course, the war of the Rebellion began, and in 1863 he laid aside his books and enlisted in the Fourteenth Regiment Iowa Volunteer In- fantry, and went to the front to take part in the great struggle for liberty. He was captured near Holly Springs, Mississippi, in the summer of 1864, and remained a prisoner until nearly the close of the war, when he was exchanged at Black River. Returning to Iowa, he was mustered out and hon- orably discharged, after which he went back to his old home in Wisconsin, and resumed his legal studies, and in 1866 was admitted to the bar. He continued his practice with success until 1873, when he removed to Chicago.
His practice in Chicago was very satisfactory, and he soon attracted to himself a good clientage and became attorney for several wholesale firms. As a lawyer he was careful, prompt and reliable, deliberate in his judgment and true to the inter- ests of his clients, proving himself a good student of human nature as well as of legal lore. It was these and kindred characteristics that brought him prominently to the attention of those whose legal business he managed, among whom was the firm of Messrs. C. M. Henderson and Co., and
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when, in 1881, Mr. Edmund Burke (who had been the financial manager of the firm) associated himself with Mr. James H. Walker, under the firm name of Burke, Walker and Co., Mr. Howard was tendered and accepted the position in the house of Messrs. C. M. Henderson and Co. made vacant by the withdrawal of Mr. Burke.
The position is one for which his qualifications eminently fit him, and during the eleven years that he has filled it his services have been of the highest order, and he ranks among the ablest commercial financiers of Chicago.
Mr. Howard is prominently identified with the Masonic fraternity, having become a member of that order in 1874. For two successive terms he was Illustrious Grand Potentate of Medinah Tem- ple, Ancient Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member of Home Lodge, A. F. and A. M., Chevalier Bayard Commandery and Oriental
Consistory, and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Some twelve years ago he was quite prominent in politics. Has been a member of the township, city, county and State Central Committees (Republican), and was a member of the State Executive Committee during the cam- paign wherein President Hayes was elected. He has always been a devoted worker for what he believed to be right in politics, but business and its cares has made it impossible for him to be as actively engaged in such matters as heretofore.
Mr. Howard has always a kindly word of en- couragement for those who are ambitious and worthy, and many a young man will testify that the encouragement and material aid given him by Mr. Howard has added much to his own develop- ment and success. He is a man of good execu- tive attainments, a forcible speaker, a genial companion and a faithful friend.
ALBERT LYMAN COF,
CHICAGO, ILL.
A LBERT L. COE is a member of the well- known firm of Mead & Coe, one of the oldest established real estate firms in the city of Chicago. Their business was organized as early as 1868, since which time it has grown and developed immensely, being to-day one of the most prominent and favorably known houses in its line in Chicago.
Mr. Coe was born at Talmage, Ohio, about thirty-five miles south eastof the city of Cleve- land, and is the son of the Rev. David Lyman Coe, who came to the Western Reserve in 1818, soon after graduating from Williams College, Massachusetts, and Polly (Hayes) Coe, the daughter of Colonel Richard Hayes, who, with his family, left Hartland, Connecticut, in the spring of 1804. Colonel Hayes led a colony of some twelve families, who located in Hartford, Trumbull county, Ohio, which town, together with a number of surrounding ones, they named after the various New England towns from which they came. The Colonel recruited a regiment of infantry from the very sparsely settled country of Northern Ohio, and took part in the War of 1812; afterward became a prosperous merchant, owned
a large store, mills, stage line and other industries. He died about 1840, leaving quite a large fortune for those days. His family and that of President Hayes were distantly related, being, in fact, of the same blood. In 1836 occurred the death of Rev. David L. Coc, and in 1838 Mrs. Coe was married to Dr. Oresty K. Hawley.
Receiving his early education in the district school, young Coe subsequently attended the academy at Painesville, Ohio, for some two years, and at Grand River Institution, in Austinburg, Ashtabula county, Ohio, leaving here at the age of seventeen to engage in the business of life.
Our subject's stepfather was a noted Abolition- ist, and his house was one of the stations along the celebrated " Underground Railway," and young Coe drove many a load of runaway slaves up to the different points on Lake Erie, at and near Ashtabula, securing passage for them to the Canadian shore, the trips being oftentimes made at night. His selection for this position was owing to the good qualities he possessed as a horseman, and on account of his well-known fear- lessness and bravery, unusual for a boy of his age, as in those days threats of personal violence were
yours Truly Albert Lleve
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freely made by the pro-slavery element under protection of the infamous "Fugitive-Slave Law." This service continued from his ninth to his four- teenth year. Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade, both of abolition fame, were residents of the same county, and in the same circle of friends. It is therefore not surprising that young Coe took delight in visiting them, and naturally derived much patriotic inspiration therefrom.
When about eighteen years old he decided to seek a wider field for his energies, and eventually settled in Chicago in 1853. In February, 1854, he entered into the coal business, under the firm name of T. R. Clarke and Co., the firm consisting of Thos. R. Clarke, Benjamin Carpenter and Albert L. Coe. Three years later Mr. Clarke retired, and the firm name was then changed to that of Coe & Carpenter, which firm was con- tinued until the beginning of the War of the Rebellion.
In September, 1861, Mr. Coe, aroused by that patriotism which has characterized even his early boyhood, enlisted in the Fifty-first Illinois Infantry (raised in Chicago) as a private, serving over four years, or during the war. But before leaving camp he was commissioned second lieutenant, serving most of the time with the Army of the Cumber- land. He was under Generals Pope, Rosecrans, Sheridan, Thomas, Grant and Sherman, and did detachment service at the headquarters of the First Brigade, Fourteenth Army Corps, and also of the second division of the Fourteenth Army Corps; participated in the capture of Island No. IO, was at Pittsburg Landing, the Siege of Corinth, the campaigns from Nashville to Chatta- nooga, battle of Mission Ridge, taking part in the Atlanta campaign, and was one of those who marched with Sherman to the sea; also on the march from Savannah, through the Carolinas, to Washington, and was in the grand review at the close of the war. He received a captain's com- mission, but was never regularly mustered in that rank owing to the continued active operations in the field of the 14th Corps. He was mustered out of service in November, 1865, at Springfield, Illinois. Subsequently he became a member of and helped to organize the Illinois National Guards, and from 1875 to 1880 served as major and quartermaster on Gen. A. C. Ducat's staff, and was on duty during the riots in this city in 1877.
Upon returning to civil life Mr. Coe decided to engage in the real estate business. He had previously, and while in the coal business, become considerably interested in real estate matters, having received numerous commissions to execute in real estate from friends in the East. In Jan- uary, 1868, he formed a 'partnership with Mr. A. B. Mead, under the firm name of Mead & Coe, which firm continues one of the most enterprising and best known, and one of the oldest firms engaged in the business in Chicago. They pos- sess an extensive clientage, and, in fact, do an amount of business equaled by few firms.
He was married in March, 1864, to Miss Char- lotte E. Woodward, a daughter of Joseph Wood- ward, a prominent merchant of Mansfield, Con- necticut.
One of the organizers of the Union League Club, he has been one of its most active and efficient members, serving as director or officer for a number of years, and previous to 1891 he was its vice-president for three years. A member of the Loyal Legion and George H. Thomas Post, G. A. R., he is also an active member of the Citizens' League, and has been a director of the Auditorium Association since the first year of its establishment. He has been for five years treasurer of the City Missionary Society, and is still a member of its directorate. He is presi- dent and one of the incorporators of the Royal Trust Company, one of the substantial financial institutions of Chicago. He has also been for a number of years a trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago, and at the last election was elected vice-president of its Board of Trustees.
In politics he is a Republican. He is a member of the New England Congregational Church, hav- ing been identified with it since the first month of its organization, and has attended same since July, 1853.
Personally, Mr. Coe is of medium height and of commanding address, extremely genial and affable in manner. He is of a generous disposi- tion and very popular. It would, perhaps, be difficult to name anyone who has a more just claim to the honor of being considered one of Chicago's representative business men than Albert Lyman Coe, for he has always been identified with the best interests of the city, and has always
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taken an active part in the general welfare there- or more highly respected citizens of Chicago than of, and there are, perhaps, few more esteemed he.
NICHOLAS SENN, M.D., PH.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
N ICHOLAS SENN was born in Buchs, in the Canton of St. Gall, Switzerland, on October 31, 1844. llis parents were industrious farmers, whose thrift and respectability were the cardinal gifts they bestowed upon their children.
Nicholas was the second youngest member of a family of three sons and one daughter; one of his brothers died while serving in the Second Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers. In his native canton he had but the meager advantages of the district schools, which he attended until nine years of age, when his parents immigrated to America, and soon after settled at Ashford, Fond du Lac Co., Wisconsin.
Entering the grammar school of the city of Fond du Lac, he pursued his studies with marked ability, and was graduated at the age of eighteen years. Even at that early age he displayed un- usual mental power, which later became genius and earned the applause of the medical and sur- gical world. Having determined upon his voca- tion, and completed his studies in the public schools, he became a student under Dr. Munk, and pursued with keen relish the study of Latin, botany, pharmacy and the natural sciences, and then entered the Chicago Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1868. He was awarded the first prize for a thesis on the modus operandi and therapeutic uses of Digitalis purpurea. His original investigation of the action of this drug was most unique, and to the astonishment of the profession, he proved that instead of a cardiac sedative, as Digitalis had been previously regarded, it was a cardiac stimulant, and this latter opinion has since universally obtained. After receiving his degree of M. I)., Dr. Senn was appointed house surgeon in the Cook County Hospital at Chicago, where he remained a year and a half.
Returning to Fond du Lac county, he began the practice of his profession at Ashford, and was married the following year to Miss Aurelia S.
Millhouser. Hle went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1874, and enjoyed a practice that returned him ten thousand dollars the first year. In 1878 he attended a course of lectures at the University of Munich, Germany, and was grad- uated Magna Cum Laude, presenting a thesis on the surgical treatment of varicocele by sub- cutaneous ligation. He was appointed attending surgeon at the Milwaukee Hospital before going abroad, and was also elected president of the Wisconsin State Medical Society, and delivered before that body an address on medical legisla- tion, which attracted widespread and favorable comment. At that time surgical pathology was the subject of universal attention, and became infused with new life, due to the investigations of eminent European pathologists, and Dr. Senn pursued a special course in pathological and microscopic anatomy under Professor Heitzmann, an eminent pathologist of New York, attending also the surgical lectures and clinics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City.
Returning to Milwaukee, he resumed his prac- tice, which had grown to immense proportions, attracting patients from all parts of Wisconsin and many of the neighboring States. Ile per- fected the hospital facilities of Milwaukee, and, continuing his original investigations and opera- tions in surgery, astonished two continents by his bold and successful surgical achievements. When Professor Von Esmarch, the celebrated German surgeon, visited this country, he made a special journey to Milwaukee to personally greet Dr. Senn, whose fame had crossed the Atlantic.
In all the details of intestinal surgery, Dr. Senn became the recognized authority of the modern surgical world, and his methods of diagnosis and treatment in this specialty were both original and scientific. In gunshot wounds of the abdomen, he introduced the use of hydrogen gas per rectum as the only reliable means of deter- mining a perforation of the bowel. If the intes-
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tines were perforated, the gas escaped through a small glass tube inserted in the wound, and would burn brightly on applying a lighted match. The same test was also available in wounds of the stomach. He was tendered fellowship in the most distinguished foreign societies. Among other distinctions he was elected a member of the Société Chevalier Sauveteur. In 1885 he was appointed Professor of the Principles and Practice of Surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. He, however, con- tinued his residence and labors in Milwaukee. Three years later, on the death of Professor Gunn, of Rush Medical College, Chicago, Dr. Senn resigned from the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and accepted the chair of the Principles of Surgery and Surgical Pathology in the Rush Medical College.
Soon after the death of Dr. Parkes, the dis- tinguished surgeon of Rush Medical College, Dr. Senn was chosen to fill his place. He removed to Chicago in the spring of 1891, to the great grief of his hosts of friends and patients in Milwaukee, where his practice had been all that the highest ambition could desire. Gov. Peck had appointed him Surgeon General of Wisconsin, and he had begun a thorough organi- zation of the surgical corps of the State. So great was his enthusiasm in this work, that he decided to retain his commission on the Governor's staff and perfect the work which he had undertaken. He organized the Association of Military Sur- geons of the National Guard of Wisconsin and the Association of Military Surgeons of the National Guard of the United States, and is president of both.of these associations. During the early part of the present year (1892) Dr. Senn has been a tireless contributor to surgical litera- ture, and his capacity for work has always been a source of amazement to his confrères.
During his last visit to the old world he was asked by a celebrated Swiss surgeon how he found time for so much work, and if the days were not longer in America than in Europe. "No," he replied with a sly twinkle in his eye, " our days are not longer, Doctor, but our nights are." And this is the secret of his prolific pen. His library is his evening workshop, and here he labors long into the small hours. One is fairly bewildered with the extent of his library. Books
from the floor to the ceiling, filling two spacious rooms, and manuscript that must be compiled and made ready for the publisher, till one fairly shudders at the thoughts of attempting such a task. His is the largest and most select private medical library in the world, and it is amid such · environments that Dr. Senn has produced his most valuable surgical monographs and supplied the surgical conventions of the world with brilliant flashes from his cunning scalpel. For the past five years he has received an annual invitation to present an original paper on surgery before the International Medical Congress, and at the convention held in Washington, D. C., in 1887, he contributed his remarkable monograph on the diagnosis and treatment of gunshot wounds of the stomach and intestines. It marked the dawn of a new era upon the subject of gun- shot wounds of the abdomen.
Dr. Senn is constantly importuned by pub- lishers for manuscript long in advance of its preparation, since all his works are unique and find a ready market.
Among his published works are "The Principles of Surgery," now in its first edition ; "Experiment- al Surgery," and "Surgical Bacterial," which have reached their second edition and are now being translated into the French, Italian and Polish languages ; " Intestinal Surgery," which has been translated into the German language. All these works are original, and are the standard text books on their respective subjects. Endless papers, before international, national, state and local societies ; monographs and contributions to surgical and medical journals, constitute an amount of labor that seems almost impossible, when one recalls the duties of instructor, operator and private surgeon. Dr. Senn has been invited to co-operate with twelve of the most eminent surgeons of this country in the production of the "American Text-Book of Surgery," and he will contribute all of that portion relating to abdom- inal surgery. This work, from the prominence of the collaborators, promises to be the most authen- tic surgical work of the present century.
In 1887 Dr. Senn visited all the European hos- pitals, and wrote a book entitled " Four Months Among the Surgeons of Europe," which was well received by the profession. In 1890 he was invited to represent America at the International
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Medical Congress, held in Berlin, and his demon- stration of original methods in gunshot wounds of the abdomen before this convention produced a sensation and won honors and decorations for him.
Dr. Senn received the degree of Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin on returning from his second trip to Europe. Ile is professor of surgery in Rush Medical College and attending sur- geon to the Presbyterian and St. Joseph's Hospi- tals; professor of surgery in the Chicago Polyclinic; fellow of the American Surgical Association ; honorary fellow of the College of Physicians of Pennsylvania ; permanent member of the German Congress of Surgeons; honorary member of La Academia de Medicina de México, of the D). Hayes Agnew Surgical Society of Philadelphia; corresponding member of the Harveian Society of London, England; member of the Ohio State Medical Society and the Minnesota State Medical Society ; member of the American Medical Asso- ciation, the British Medical Association, the Wis- consin State Medical Society, the Brainard Med- ical Society, etc., etc., etc.
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