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 42
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by President Harrison and confirmed as minister to Spain. He resigned the office in May, 1890, preferring the life of a private citizen at home to that of a government official stationed in Madrid.
In June, 1890, he was appointed by President Harrison as one of the commissioners-at-large of the World's Columbian Exposition, to be held at Chicago in 1893, and upon the meeting of that body, June 27, was unanimously elected its pres- ident, an office for which his native executive ability and rich and varied experiences as an organizer most eminently fit him. Personally, Mr. Palmer is a man of great firmness and de- cision of character, and cool and deliberate in his judgments. He is at the same time a man of ad- vanced and progressive ideas, enterprising and stirring, and withal possessed of a sincerity and goodness of heart that discover themselves in his every act, and attract the admiration and win and hold the confidence of all with whom he has to do. He is a generous man, public-spirited, and contributes liberally of his time and energy and money to religious and philanthropic interests, and to whatever conduces to the welfare of his city and the good of his fellows. He is a man of literary tastes, a lover and liberal patron of art, and was one of the projectors and founders of the Detroit Art Museum. In short, Mr. Palmer has made his life a decided success, and with his in- fluence and wealth, and a will to put them to the noblest use, he cannot but hold a leading place and make the world better. He married Miss Lizzie P., daughter of Chas. P. Merrill, in 1855. He has no children.
HON. WILLIAM LINDSAY,
FRANKFORT, KY.
W ILLIAM LINDSAY is a native of Rock- bridge county, Virginia. He was born on September 4, 1835, and traces his lineage back through a line of distinguished ancestors to the celebrated Lindsay family of Scotland. He early decided to enter the legal profession and turned his studies in that direction, and began the prac- tice of law in Hickman county, Kentucky, whither he had removed in 1854. 'At the opening of the
War of the Rebellion he enlisted in the Confed- eate cause, and served gallantly as captain and staff officer. In 1865 he was paroled as a pris- oner of war, at Columbus, Mississippi, and re- turned to his home in Kentucky and resumed the practice of law. Two years later he was elected to the State Senate of Kentucky, and subse- quently was elected judge of the Court of Ap- peals. In 1890 he again represented his district
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in the State Senate, and more recently he was a candidate for the United States Senate against Mr. Carlisle.
Judge Lindsay is a man of scholarly attain- ments, a lawyer of great ability and in the best sense a high-minded gentleman. He is the recog. nized head of the Kentucky bar, and in all the relations of his private life or public career he has won universal confidence and respect. He
has been honored with many positions of confi- dence and trust. lle is president of the Ken- tucky branch of the Sons of the Revolution and one of the commissioners-at-large of the World's Columbian Exposition, to be held at Chicago in 1893. To all these varied offices he has devoted himself with energy and zeal, bringing to them the benefit of a well-disciplined mind and a rich and varied experience.
WILLIAM H. BYFORD, JR., M.D.
CHICAGO, ILL.
D URING the latter part of the present cen- tury the scientific world has watched with growing interest the labors of a certain medical triumvirate. A father and two sons, Dr. William HI. Byford, Sr., Dr. Henry Turman Byford, and the man of whom we write, have, by their re- markable achievements, marked an epoch in American surgery. The first, as is well known, lived to attain the full fruition of his work. Chi- cago is still the home of the second. The trium- virate was broken by the untimely death of the third-the young, gifted and beloved physician.
William Hezekiah Byford was born in the year 1850, at Mt. Vernon, Indiana, and christened with a name already famous in the medical profession, being a grandson of the noted Dr. Ilezekiah Hol- land, of Kentucky a man who died from ex- posure in the performance of professional duty.
Our subject had three sisters, all married and living in Chicago, and one brother, mentioned above, between whom and himself there existed a strong bond of affection.
In 1857 the family removed to Chicago, where William, who was then seven years of age, re- ceived the first rudiments of his education. He spent five years in the public, and two in the pri- vate schools of the city, and in 1865, when the family went abroad, was well prepared to enter High School in Germany. Three years of faith- ful work there and in a German gymnasium fur- nished him with that broad basis of general knowledge and proportionately wide range of choice which is the best preparation for the more special study of a profession. His youthful aspi- rations inclining him toward the legal profession,
he, in 1868, entered the Chicago Law School, graduating therefrom in 1870. lle practiced in Chicago for three years when failing health neces- sitated a trip to the South. Experiencing no benefit therefrom, in the summer of 1873, in com- pany with his brother, Dr. H. T. Byford, he re- moved to Denver, Colorado, and bravely devoted himself anew to the practice of law. Ill-health, however, still continuing, he concluded that so sedentary a pursuit was not best for him, and de- cided to adopt a more active profession in which he would have the opportunity of being in the open air. Accordingly, in 1876, he returned to Chicago, and with unabated energy and indomi- table courage, began the study of medicine. He graduated in 1878 from the Chicago Medical College, and immediately received the appoint- ment as Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy in that institution.
For about a year he practiced in Chicago, as- sociated with his brother, and then removed to Faribault, Minnesota. Finding that field too narrow for his specialty, in 1879 he changed his residence to Minneapolis. At last, established in his proper sphere, his rise was rapid and brilliant, and success was assured. Soon after locating in Minneapolis he was elected to the Professorship of Physical Diagnosis in the Minnesota College Hospital Medical School, a position which he held until his death.
Dr. Byford became noted for his boldness, dex- terity, and success as an operator, and in a short time his practice had grown beyond the possibil- ity of his meeting its demands. He was obliged to confine himself to consultation, in which the
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accuracy and completeness of his diagnoses gave him the highest rank as an authority. Laboring in the same department of medical science as his distinguished father, it was soon evident that his would be an equally distinguished career. Father and son alike gained great and well-deserved re- nown in all matters pertaining to abdominal sur- gery, and each, when he died, was his city's lead- ing gynæcologist. This eminence, which would have been esteemed abundant for many a man as the crown of a life-time's work, was gained by Dr. Byford before he was thirty-three years old. What might have been the end of a career so brilliantly begun can only be imagined, for in November, 1883, in the midst of high honors and with the most splendid prospects beckon- ing him forward, the young physician's life was ended.
Gifted by nature with a large and powerful physique, he was from his youth a practiced ath- lete. Daring and ambitious in the performance of feats of strength and agility, he brought upon himself, in an unfortunate moment of over-exer- tion, the rupture of a blood vessel in the lungs. From this injury he suffered many years, and to its effects in the rare disease known as fibrous de-
generation of the lung tissue, his death was ulti- mately due.
Earnest, self-sacrificing, eager to lessen the suf- ferings of his fellows, and equally eager for the advancement of the nation, Dr. Byford took an active and well-directed interest in civil govern- ment and politics, his political faith being that of the Republican party. In religious belief he was brought up a Methodist, but in later years the arduous duties of his profession, together with in- creased infirmity, prevented active service in the church. Sincere as truth itself, Dr. Byford was a man to whom hypocrisy was an abomination, and who, ignoring forms and all practice, valued men at their real worth. Severe as was his judgment, none ever had a friend more loyal and magni- mous than he when once his confidence was given. He seemed always to be more concerned for the prosperity of others than for his own. Men loved him because he retained in manhood, a boy's impulsive, sympathetic, generous heart.
Dr. Byford was married in 1876 to Mrs. Maude Whyte, daughter of a venerable jurist of Ohio. Mrs. Byford was a faithful, devoted wife and did much to aid her husband in the attainment of prominence in the profession.
GEORGE EDMUND FOSS,
CHICAGO, ILL.
A MONG the young lawyers who practice in Chicago no one stands higher than the sub- ject of this sketch. He is not only one of the best educated men in the profession, in science and literature, but he has systematically pursued the study of the law in all of its various branches, and is familiar with its subtleties and technicali- ties. Acute and alert of mind, and master of brilliant and lucid expression, Mr. Foss rises to the full dignity of an accomplished orator, either addressing a jury or on the platform, being al- ways courteous, magnanimous and forcible. He arrays evidence logically and draws conclusions convincingly. He is graceful in his gestures, earnest, rhetorical and vivid in delivery.
Mr. Foss is a native of Berkshire, Vermont, and was born July 2d, 1863. His father, George E. Foss, is a manufacturer and a business man,
widely and favorably known as a man of intelli- gence and strict integrity. The mother of our subject, before marriage, was Miss Marcia C. Noble ; her great-grandfather was a soldier in the war of the Revolution. George Edmund began his education in the high school at St. Albans, Ver- mont, and was graduated therefrom in 1880. He entered Harvard College, at Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, in 1881, graduating in 1885. He was then connected with the law office of Noble and Smith, at St. Albans. He went to New York City and entered Columbia Law School, but was taken ill at the end of one term. He was con- nected with a legal magazine, and obtained con- siderable distinction as a writer on legal subjects, and was tendered the editorship of a legal maga- zine published in New York.
In 1888 he removed to Chicago, and in the fall
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of that year he entered the senior class of the Union College of Law, taking a two years' course in one year ; he was graduated in the summer of 1889. He was president of his class, and at com- mencement honorable mention was given him for the best legal thesis, and a fifty-dollar prize was awarded him as best orator.
In March of the same year, after examination by the Appellate Court, he was admitted to the bar of Illinois. He was then associated with Hon. Alfred Ennis, formerly general counsel of Pullman Palace Car Company, and later on was office associate with Hon. George Driggs, now a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook county, and
since January Ist, 1889, he has been practicing alone, with excellent success, having quite a num- ber of the wealthy citizens of Chicago as clients, and occupying a fine office in the Chamber of Commerce building.
Mr. Foss is well developed physically, has a robust constitution, and he is admirably adapted to the labors of his chosen profession. He is a courteous gentleman and of excellent habits and high social standing. He has been vice-presi- dent of the Alumni Association of Union Col- lege of Law; he is a member of Harvard and Sunset Clubs, and also secretary of the Sons of Vermont.
JOHN DOLESE,
CHICAGO, ILL.
A MONG the pioneers of the Garden City, the men who have seen her rapid and steady rise from an unincorporated town to her present high position as the second city of the Union, and the great center of the North and West, few have made more of a success of life than the sub- ject of this sketch.
His father, Peter Dolese, settled in Chicago in 1833 or 1834, and was married in 1836 to Miss Matilda Laible, of Detroit, Michigan. John was born in Chicago on February 12, 1837, in the fam- ily residence, then located on the corner of Lake and La Salle streets. Peter Dolese, our subject's father, was born in the Province of Lorraine, France, and his wife in Baden, which was at that time an independent principality ; their first child was named John, in honor of Peter's brother, who was then a resident of Chicago. Shortly after John's birth the family moved to Peru, Illinois, where they remained until the death of Mrs. Do- lese, in 1840.
The Laible family, John's maternal ancestors, all lived in Detroit, with the exception of one sis- ter, who resided in Europe. After his mother's death John accompanied his father to France, where he remained with his grandparents until 1845, when he returned with his father to Chi- cago. This trip was the thirteenth and last trip of Peter Dolese across the Atlantic. Though but seven years of age at that time, our subject re-
members with distinctness the most interesting incidents of his trip from New York west, which was made entirely by water. The route was by way of the Hudson River to Albany, thence via the Erie Canal to Buffalo, and by the lakes to Chi- cago, where he arrived the latter part of July, 1845, and he has remained a resident of this city ever since. He recalls vividly the Fourth of July, 1845, because on that day, while passing through Syracuse, on the Erie Canal boat, the boat's bed- ding was burned by fireworks that were used in celebrating the sixty-ninth anniversary of " Inde- pendence Day." He arrived in Chicago with his cousin, then a young man of twenty, who drifted South and died at New Orleans. His rudimen- tary education was obtained at the Dearborn School, then located opposite the present site of McVicker's Theatre. His first venture in mercan- tile life was in the employ of his father, and he remained with him until nineteen years of age, when he started a teaming and transfer business for himself, and continued in that business until 1868, when he formed a copartnership with Jason H. Shepard. That was the beginning of the quarrying and paving business of Dolese & Shepard. Previous to the formation of the firm, Mr. Dolese, in connection with his father, had taken several contracts and graded several streets. Their early work in that direction included grad- ing work on the Michigan Southern Railroad, and
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also contracts for grading on the Rock Island Railroad between Blue Island and Morgan Ridge, now called Washington Heights, which had been sub-let to them by Judge Fuller, the original con- tractor. His father's career, however, was brought to an end by his unexpected decease on Febru- ary 14, 1862.
Among the more important contracts of Mr. John Dolese was that with the Union Rolling Mill, now the Illinois Steel Company (of which his present partner, Mr. Shepard, was cashier and bookkeeper). He had charge of their shipments and transferred their material. This contract is now being filled by his eldest son, William, who has succeeded to his father's earlier business.
From a small business at the time of the forma- tion of the copartnership, the firm of Dolese & Shepard has reach a point of success which very few firms attain, and they can look back with a feeling of just pride upon their business career, which has been one of unexampled prosperity, re- sulting from the application of sterling business principles, combined with native business ability. Mr. Dolese has attended to the supervision of the executive part of the business, and his partner, Mr. Shepard, to the finances of the firm. Their business, conducted with great foresight and tact, has become, undoubtedly, the largest in its line, not only in Chicago, but in the United States. The number of their employés has increased from five or six men to six hundred or more, and their pay roll, including the wages of men em- ployed in concerns they control, has increased from a few hundred dollars a month to the enor- mous sum of from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand dollars monthly.
They own three granite quarries and two gravel pits, and they have constructed many more miles of streets than any firm on the continent. They have either built or furnished the material for the construction of at least two-thirds of that beauti- ful driveway, Michigan boulevard, and have either constructed or been interested in the construction of all the streets and drives of Hyde and South parks. All this work has been done under the personal supervision of Mr. Dolese, who has taken an active interest in it- an interest prompted not by financial motives alone, but also by a con- sciousness that his work well done would be a lasting monument to his firm that would survive
many generations. The great South Park system of boulevards and drives has become famous, and is pointed out to Chicago visitors as one of the most beautiful localities in the city ; and as the larger part of this construction was done under the immediate management of Mr. Dolese, or the material furnished by the firm of which he is a member, he has just cause to feel proud of its completion.
He was married in August, 1857, to Miss Kath- erine Jacobs, of Chicago, and they have nine children, all unmarried. Their names and order of birth are : William, Matilda, Rose, Minnie, John, Jr., Henry, Peter, Ida and Laura. The family resi- dence was formerly in Cicero township, but is now (1892) at No. 3414 Wabash avenue.
Mr. Dolese is a very courteous and genial gen- tleman, and a man who is always an enter- taining conversationalist. His reminiscences of early Chicago are most interesting and enter- taining. He can recall the time when the present corner of Lake and Clark streets was an apparently bottomless swamp, when the city prisoners formed into a " chain gang," dragged heavy iron balls and worked upon the public streets ; and their prison was an old log structure at the corner of La Salle and Randolph streets. He also speaks of his father's reminiscences of the day of the first city election, when Messrs. Ogden and Kinzie were the candidates for the mayoralty. His father and uncle took opposite sides on the question of the day, the latter voting as a Demo- crat for Mr. Ogden, and the former as a Whig for Mr. Kinzie. Mr. Dolese has followed in his father's footsteps, and when the supporters of Daniel Webster became embodied in the Repub- lican party, he became a staunch Republican. Mr. Dolese also speaks of the great ice gorge, which caused the bridges to be washed from their fastenings, and indeed he can relate interesting in- cidents connected with nearly every part of the city. He has seen Chicago grow from the dimen- sions of a mere village, to take rank amongst the very first cities, not only in our own country, but in the world.
There are few men in Chicago who have done as much to materially beautify and improve the city as he. Always even-tempered, ready to greet one with a kindly word and cheerful welcome, polite, considerate and charitable, he is respected
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by his subordinates and admired and sought after by his equals. He has never striven for any polit- ical or social honors, but content with his success
in life, he has taken his greatest pleasure in the enjoyment of his friends' society, and that place of pure and sweet delight, a cheerful, happy home.
BENJAMIN H. CAMPBELL,
CHICAGO, ILL.
T HE life of Benjamin Hendren Campbell was a busy one, and shows what indomitable will and persevering energy can accomplish. He not only benefited himself by his numerous enter- prises, many of which were of a semi-public char- acter, but the community in which he resided was also largely the gainer. He was in every sense a pioneer, a man of fine physique and noticeable presence.
He was born in King William county, near Richmond, Virginia, in 1814. At the age of nineteen we find the youth in Galena, Illinois. The steamer Winnebago, on which he took pas- sage, was thirteen days making the trip from St. Louis to Galena. Here he secured employ- ment in the wholesale grocery house of Campbell & Morehouse (G. W. Campbell and D). B. More- house comprising the firm). After four years of faithful service he was admitted as a partner in the business, the name of the firm changing to Campbell, Morehouse & Co. For two years he remained an active partner in this concern. In 1841 the firm closed out their business and Mr. Campbell next turned his attention to the com- mission business, forming a partnership with Mr. Myers F. Truett, under the firm name of Camp- bell & Truett. This partnership was of short duration, and Mr. Campbell resumed the grocery trade in partnership with Capt. Orrin Smith, under the firm name of Campbell & Smith. This partnership lasted for about two years, and after its dissolution Mr. Campbell carried on the busi- ness for a short time in his own name, after which he entered into copartnership with his brother-in- law, J. Russell Jones, Esq., who was then his chief clerk and bookkeeper. At that time the whole- sale trade of Galena was very large, and to supply it required both ability and experience. A year's supply of teas was frequently bought in Boston, and coffees and sugars in New Orleans. It was no unusual thing for Mr. Campbell to visit the
plantations of Louisiana and buy an entire cargo of sugar, to be shipped by boat to Galena. In 1850 Mr. Campbell organized the old Minnesota Packet Company, the steamer " Argo" (William Lodwick, captain,) being its first boat. This enterprise proved a financial success to the com- pany, and opened a large and profitable trade with the river and interior towns of Iowa and Wisconsin above Galena, and the entire state of Minnesota. This company, the controlling spirit of which was Mr. Campbell, contributed very largely to the development of these States, and was a source of wealth to the merchants of Galena. It was afterwards called the Galena, Dubuque, Dunlieth and Minnesota Packet Com- pany, then the Northwestern Packet Company, and a few years later was merged into the Keokuk & Northern Line Packet Company, running be- tween St. Louis, Keokuk and St. Paul.
On the opening of the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad, the wholesale business was taken from Galena and transferred to Chicago, and sev- cral of Galena's heaviest dealers retired from business.
In 1861 the firm of B. H. Campbell & Company closed out their business, Mr. Jones having been appointed United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois. On retiring from the grocery trade Mr. Campbell purchased the steamers "Jennie Whipple," " Keokuk " and " Kate Castle," and established a daily line between Davenport and Keokuk, carrying the United States mails. He then built two steamers, the " Keithsburg " and the "New Boston," and added them to his line, and several years later sold out to the Northern Line & Keokuk Packet Company. In 1859 Mr. Campbell built the first and only steamer ever built in Dubuque, Iowa. She was called the " Dexter." He also built two barges, the "Annie" and the "Jessie." In 1869 Mr. Campbell was appointed by his old-time friend, President Grant,
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United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois. This position he held for eight years, having been reappointed after serving four years. Under his supervision the United States Census of 1870 was taken, and the returns were especially commended by the department as being, with one other, the best taken in the country. This appointment required him to change his residence to Chicago, and after serving the two terms, hav- ing become interested in various enterprises in Chicago, he decided to make his home there. He was vice-president of the Chicago West Division Street Railway Company and the largest stock- holder in that organization. He was one of the incorporators and directors of the National Bank of Illinois, also a director in the Union Hide and Leather Company and president of the Chicago Safe and Lock Company.
Mr. Campbell was married in July, 1837, at Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin, to Miss Eliza H. Scott, daughter of Judge Andrew Scott, who was the first United States Judge of Arkansas. Mrs. Campbell died in Chicago, March 19, 1874, leaving eight children. Mr. Campbell died at Chicago, on November 28, 1890, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, leaving the following-named children surviving him : Mrs. Annie C. Babcock, widow of Gen. O. E. Babcock, Augustus S., Benjamin H., A. Courtney and Mary L. Campbell, Mrs. Emily C. Nixon, Mrs. Russella C. Smith and Jessie Campbell.
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