USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume V > Part 81
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ness and social position which is now his, for death deprived him of the care and guidance of the father and at an early age he started out in the business world. Character and ability, however, have constituted the foundation upon which he has builded his success and won his advancement and today he is a forceful factor in the manufacturing circles of the Mississippi valley.
FRANK JOSEPH PETERMAN.
Frank Joseph Peterman, vice president of the Stock-Peterman House Furnishing Company of St. Louis, has been a lifelong resident of this city, his birth having here occurred June 16, 1878. His father, Joseph Peterman, was born in Bavaria, Germany, but came to the United States about sixty-five years ago, establishing his home in St. Louis where he was engaged in business as a paving contractor. In fact he was one of the first contractors in his line in the city and did all of the paving around Eads bridge and Third and Washington streets from the levee up. He wedded Catherine Dudine, who was born in Alsace-Lorraine, now a part of France, and who came to America when quite young, settling in St. Louis. Both Mr. and Mrs. Peterman attained an advanced age, the father dying when eighty-six, while his wife passed away in 1918 at the age of eighty-two years.
Frank Joseph Peterman of this review was educated in St. Joseph's parochial school at the corner of Eleventh and Cass streets in St. Louis. He started out in the house furnishing business in connection with the firm of Hellrung & Grimm and in 1904 organized the Stock-Peterman House Furnishing Company, of which he is the vice president. Through the intervening period of sixteen years he has most carefully directed the interests of the business in association with his fellow officers of the company and success has been theirs in substantial measure. Mr. Peterman has always been connected with this line of business activity and the thoroughness of his work and his ability have brought him very substantial success. He is a member of the Retail Furniture Dealers Association and also a member of the North St. Louis Busi- ness Men's Association.
In St. Louis, on the 22d of October, 1902, Mr. Peterman was married to Miss Mary Stock, a daughter of Bernard Stock, a prominent contractor of St. Louis. They have three children: Alvin, Eugene and Frank. The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church and Mr. Peterman belongs to the Knights of Columbus. In politics he is a republican but has never been an office seeker. During the World war he was connected with the Liberty loan drives in north St. Louis. His time and attention on the whole, however, have been given to his business affairs and the thoroughness which he manifests in all that he undertakes, combined with his progressive spirit and his enterprise, have brought him a substantial measure of success.
TILGHMAN A. BRYANT.
Tilghman A. Bryant, a grain broker of St. Louis who has developed an extensive business through earnest effort, close application and unremitting energy, is a repre- sentative of a family that has been truly American in its lineal and collateral branches through several generations. Moreover, the ancestral line is one of which he has every reason to be proud. His father was Dr. William P. Bryant and his grand- father Judge William P. Bryant, the latter one of the earliest settlers of Rockville, Parke county, Indiana, who in 1850 was appointed to the position of chief justice of the territory of Oregon. After serving in that position for several years he returned to his native state and was there elected judge of the judicial circuit in 1855. Upon his retirement from the bench he resumed the private practice of law and continued a prominent representative and honored member of the Indiana bar to the time of his death. He won a place of distinction among the lawyers of the middle west and left to his family the priceless heritage of an honored name and a record characterized by the utmost fidelity to duty at all times. His son, Dr. William P. Bryant, wedded Mary A. Howard, a daughter of General Tilghman A. and Martha
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FRANK J. PETERMAN
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(Maxwell) Howard, of Rockville, Indiana. General Howard was one of the distin- guished men of his time. He was born near Pickensville, South Carolina, November 14, 1797, and was a son of John Howard, who at the age of eighteen years became a soldier in General Greene's army, thus serving during the closing months of the Revolutionary war. General Howard's boyhood brought him through a period of privation and toil, with no educational advantages other than a motherless boy could secure for himself, for his mother died when he was but two months old. At nine- teen years of age, still poor but resolute, he went to Tennessee to seek a home. There he began the study of law with Hugh Lawson White, at that time a celebrated jur- ist and advocate of the south. When twenty-one years of age General Howard began practice alone and in a short time his inherent manliness and his professional ability attracted the attention of Jackson and Houston and there were planted the seeds of a close friendship that ended only with his death. In 1828 General Howard was chosen a presidential elector and had the pleasure of casting the vote of Tennessee. for his friend, Andrew Jackson. Two years afterward, at the age of thirty-three years, he went to Bloomington, Indiana, and there his wife died. In 1833 he wedded Martha Maxwell, a daughter of David H. Maxwell, a prominent citizen of southern Indiana, who had been a member of the convention which drafted the state consti- tution. General and Mrs. Howard then settled in Rockville, Indiana, and he was appointed district attorney by President Jackson and when forty years of age was elected to represent his district in the twenty-seventh congress. In 1835 he was selected to represent the national government in the settlement of conflicting claims to the land in and around Chicago, disputes arising by reason of Indian treaties and from other sources. At the cabinet meeting when this matter was under discussion there was a sharp controversy over the selection of a man who could best represent the government. President Jackson coming into the room at this juncture, said: "Gentlemen, I will tell you whom to appoint-Tilgliman A. Howard of Indiana. He is an honest man. I have known him long and well." It was thus that the appoint- ment was made. Mr. Howard was afterward defeated for the United States senate in 1839 by the closest kind of a margin and for governor in 1840. In 1844 he was selected as minister plenipotentiary to the republic of Texas. He left Rockville, Indiana, on the 4th of July of that year and died of yellow fever at Washington, Texas, on the 16th of August of the same year. Many of the prominent men of his time believed if he had lived he would have become president of the United States. His widow survived him for many years, passing away on the 27th of April, 1909, at the notable age of ninety-six years. It was General Howard's daughter, Mary A. . Howard, who became the wife of Dr. William P. Bryant and to them were born four children: Tilghman A .; Frank M., who is a judge at Rockville, Indiana, thus sus- taining the records of the family for judicial ability and prominence; and Anna and Will T., both now deceased.
Tilghman A. Bryant is not only fortunate in having back of him an ancestry honorable and distinguished but is also happy in that his lines of life have been cast in harmony therewith. He was born in Rockville, Indiana, March 26, 1863, obtained a public and high school education in his native state and when eighteen years of age became a telegraph operator, being thus employed until he reached the age of twenty-two. He then entered the railway mail service as postal clerk, being thus engaged for four years, and from this time was continuously connected with the railway interests until 1902. He then turned his attention to the grain business and was in the employ of different firms until 1916, when he established business on his own account. Through the intervening years he has successfully managed his interests as a grain broker and now has a liberal patronage, having gained a most creditable position in the business circles of his adopted city. Mr. Bryant was the organizer of the Missouri Grain Dealers Association in 1916 and acted as secretary for nearly a year. He was the first successfully to bring about such an organization in this state.
Mr. Bryant has been married twice. His first wife, who bore the maiden name of Josephine Pierce, passed away in 1886. He afterward wedded Gertrude H. Hamil- ton at Rockford, Illinois, in 1895, and they became the parents of a son, William Maxwell, who passed away December 7, 1918, at the age of eighteen years.
Mr. Bryant's military record covers experience in 1898 as second lieutenant of Company G of the Fifth Illinois Regiment of the National Guard. During the recent
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World war he was very active in promoting Liherty bond sales and in advancing the Red Cross and other drives essential to the welfare of the soldiers at home and over- seas. His political allegiance in the past has been given to the democratic party, but in 1920 he supported the republican party, believing it to be for the best interests of the entire country. His religious faith is that of the Episcopal church and the nature of his interests along still other lines is further indicated through his con- nection with the Missouri Athletic Club and with the Merchants Exchange. He is a capable and forceful man and those who have had business relations with him bear testimony to his thorough honesty and trustworthiness. His entire record is in har- mony with the annals of an honored ancestry and he may well be proud of the fact that he comes of families whose Americanism has ever measured up to the one hun- dred per cent standard.
FREDERICK C. ORTHWEIN.
Frederick C. Orthwein is the president and owner of the grain business conducted under the name of the William D. Orthwein Grain Company, which is the oldest grain firm in St. Louis, the name of Orthwein being associated with the grain trade of the city from the earliest times. Frederick C. Orthwein was born May 11, 1871, in St. Louis, and is a son of William D. Orthwein whose birth occurred in Wurtemberg, Germany, February 9, 1841. In 1860, when nineteen years of age, William D. Orthwein came to America and for a year and a half was employed as a salesman in a mercantile house of Lincoln, Illinois. In 1862 he removed to St. Louis and became bookkeeper for the grain commission firm of Haenshen & Orthwein, the junior partner being his brother, Charles F. Orthwein. Until 1870 William D. Orthwein remained with the firm and then joined the firm of Orthwein & Mersman, of which his elder brother was senior partner. The firm was the first to make shipments of grain in bulk to Europe entirely by the water route from St. Louis, demonstrating the fact that business could be successfully conducted by way of New Orleans. For a quarter of a century they were the principal exporters of grain by way of the Crescent city and of Galveston and throughout his entire career William D. Orthwein made steady progress, resulting in the benefit of general business conditions as well as the improvement of his own fortunes. In 1879, with the retirement of Mr. Mersman, the firm became Orthwein Brothers and maintained a continuous existence until 1893, when William D. Orthwein organized the William D. Orthwein Grain Company, being joined in a partnership relation by his son, Frederick C. Orthwein. The father remained active in the business until 1900, when he turned over the management to his son Frederick. He was also active along other business lines, being the president of the St. Louis Victoria Flour Mills, a director of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, vice president of the Manufacturers Railway Company and a director of the Kinloch Telephone Company of which he was elected president in 1905. He succeeded in making the Kinloch one of the largest and strongest independent telephone companies in the country, both financially and in the number of phones in operation.
William D. Orthwein is a splendid type of American manhood and citizenship. His loyalty to his adopted country was manifest in his service in the Union army during the Civil war. He has cooperated in all that pertains to municipal progress in St. Louis, was a director of the Merchants Exchange and a member of the board of managers of the Mullanphy Emigrant Relief Fund. He belongs to the St. Louis, Log Cabin and Union Clubs and to the Chamber of Commerce. A contemporary biographer said of him: "His activities have been of such extent and importance as to leave the impress of his individuality upon the history of the state. With wonderful foresight he has seemed to recognize the value of a business situation or possibility and he has wrought along lines of great good. It is not only his business success, however, but his char- acter as exemplified in his relation with his fellowmen and in his patriotic citizenship that entitles him to classification with the eminent men of St. Louis." William D. Orthwein was married June 9, 1870, to Miss Emily H. Thuemmler, a native of St. Louis.
Their son, Frederick C. Orthwein, pursued his education in the public schools of St. Louis and in the Smith Academy. In 1889, when eighteen years of age, he became interested in the Victoria Flour Mills with his father and throughout the intervening period has made steady and notable progress in connection with the milling business
FREDERICK C. ORTHWEIN
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and the grain trade of the country. He afterward became general manager and treas- urer of the Victoria Flour Mills Company. He has been a most potent factor in the development of the business of the William D. Orthwein Grain Company, of which he was made vice president and general manager in 1893. When he joined his father in business he brought to the experience of the older man the ambition and progres- siveness of young manhood and it is due to his efforts that the company has since maintained its place in the foremost rank of grain dealers in the Mississippi valley. With the father's retirement as active head of the business in 1900 the control was taken up by Frederick C. Orthwein, who through the intervening period of twenty- one years has developed the business in accordance with the rapid and substantial commercial growth of St. Louis. He displays marked executive ability and is bending his efforts to administrative direction, his keen sagacity and enterprise being manifest in all that he undertakes. Moreover, many other corporate interests have benefited by his cooperation and sound business discernment, for he is the vice president of the William F. Niedringhaus Investment Company, a director and member of the executive board of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, a director of the St. Louis Coke & Chemical Company, also the Anheuser-Busch, Incorporated, the Kinloch Tele- phone Company and the Gilbsonite Construction Company. He was likewise a director from 1913 until 1915 of the National Bank of Commerce of St. Louis.
In 1896 Mr. Orthwein was married to Miss Jeannette F. Niedringhaus, daughter of William F. Niedringhaus, now deceased. They have become the parents of three sons and a daughter: William D. (II), who is now a student at Yale University and who during the period of the World war was an ensign in the United States navy; Frederick C., Jr., who was in the service of the Naval Reserve and is now attending Yale University; Richard Walter, also a Yale student; and Janet, now a pupil in the Mary Institute of St. Louis. The parents have every reason to be proud of the records of their sons, two of whom were in the military service of the country, while all three are making creditable records at Yale.
Mr. Orthwein is a member of many of the leading clubs and social organizations of the city, including the St. Louis Club, Racquet Club, Bellerive Country Club and the Sunset Hill Country Club. He finds his chief source of recreation in golf. His family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. He has been a member of the Merchants Exchange for twenty-nine years and became one of its directors when but twenty-seven years of age, being the youngest man ever chosen to that position up to that time. His life has been characterized by a spirit of determination and progress that has resulted in the successful accomplishment of everything he has undertaken. He has readily discriminated between the essential and the non-essential in all business affairs and throughout his entire career has quickly recognized and wisely utilized every opportunity that has come to him and by so doing has continued the name of Orthwein as a most potent force in the commercial and financial circles of the city. His capability and resourcefulness have long been recognized, making him one of the dynamic forces in connection with the business development of St. Louis.
F. EWALD BUSSE.
F. Ewald Busse, associated with the Barry-Wehmiller Machinery Company of St. Louis as vice president, was born in Westphalia, Germany, in 1882, his parents being Frederick W. and Johanna (Schleuter) Busse. The father is now deceased, but the mother is still living in Germany. The son obtained his education in his native land, attending the public and high schools there and also the technical university of Ilmenau, Germany, where he pursued his course in mechanical engineering. He came to America in January, 1903, as mechanical engineer for a German company, having established the attractive exhibit known as the Tyrolean Alps at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. After the close of the exposition Mr. Busse, recognizing that he had better business opportunities in the new world, accepted the position of mechanical draughtsman with the Fulton Iron Works and in 1906 became identified with the Barry-Wehmiller Machinery Company in the capacity of mechanical engineer. Through the intervening period, covering fourteen years, he has been identified with this company and since 1911 has occupied official connection, having been elected vice president of the firm at that time.
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They are engaged in the manufacture of bottle-washing machinery and theirs is the only establishment of the kind in the state and is the largest in the United States. The business has been steadily developed and in his capacity as mechanical engineer and as an executive Mr. Busse has contributed in no small measure to the success and growth of the concern.
On the 14th of April, 1907, Mr. Busse was married in St. Louis to Miss Emily Louise Stroh, a daughter of Eugene Stroh, who was formerly prominent in business in connection with the millinery line. To Mr. and Mrs. Busse have been born three children: Frederick Eugene, whose birth occurred June 18, 1910; Emily Sophia, who was born January 2, 1913; and Ewald William, born August 18, 1917.
Politically Mr. Busse is a republican, supporting the party since becoming a naturalized American citizen. Fraternally he is connected with the Masons as a member of Irwin Lodge, No. 121, A. F. & A. M .; with Bellefontaine Chapter, No. 25, R. A. M .; and Ascalon Commandery, K. T. He is also a member of the Mystic Shrine, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Evangelical church, and in these associations are indicated the nature of his interests and the rules that govern his conduct. He is yet a young man who through individual merit and ability along the line of his profession has made steady advance in that field, bringing him into close association with one of the paying productive industries of his adopted city.
HON. RICHARD BARTHOLDT.
The contributions which the Hon. Richard Bartholdt has made to American progress are distinct and valuable. For many years a member of congress he left the impress of his individuality and ability upon the laws enacted during his connec- tion with the national legislative body. Moreover, it is known that it was his personal effort that made it possible to secure the cooperation of congress in holding the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis. These and many other specific in- stances could be cited of his keen and helpful interest in public affairs ere he volun- tarily retired to private life on the 4th of March, 1915.
Mr. Bartholdt was born at Schleiz, a small provincial town in the heart of Ger- many, November 2, 1855. His father was a "Forty-eighter"-that is, a democrat who participated in the uprising of that year against autocratic government and not wishing his boy to become "cannon fodder," he readily consented to the latter's emigration to America in 1872, after his graduation from the gymnasium of his native town. Through special lessons the boy had been enabled to read and write fluently the English language before he landed on American soil. Reaching the new world he learned the printer's trade in the office of a relative in Brooklyn, New York, and after a few years was promoted from "the case" to a reporter's desk. His was a newspaper career from the ground up. After serving his apprenticeship as police and court reporter he was sent to Albany as legislative correspondent. There he came in contact with many of the future great men of the nation, including among others three who later became presidents-Arthur, Cleveland and Roosevelt. While the last named was serving his two terms in the state legislature Mr. Bartholdt gave him lessons in German and they remained good friends ever after. In 1883 Mr. Bartholdt partici- pated, as a newspaper correspondent, in the transcontinental excursion and ceremonies arranged by Henry Villard in celebration of the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad and witnessed the driving of the golden spike in the Rocky Mountains. On this occasion he formed the acquaintance of many great men of this and other nations, the distinguished guests numbering more than five hundred. On his return to New York he became foreign editor of the New York Staatszeitung, which position enabled him to familiarize himself with international questions. In 1885 he returned to St. Louis where he had already spent two years of his life and which was the native city of Mrs. Bartholdt, to assume the editorial management of the Tribune, a daily evening paper. His career here was one of exceptional success. Not only did he build up his paper but he soon became favorably and widely known, so that in 1888 the republican leaders chose him as their candidate for congress in the tenth district. At the convention, however, held at De Soto, he failed of the nomination by one vote. This defeat turned out to he a piece of good luck, as the district was then strongly
RICHARD BARTHOLDT
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democratic. Four years later, after it had been made republican, he was nominated and easily elected. This was the beginning of a long congressional career. Before entering congress he was elected to the St. Louis school board, which, in turn, elected him its president. His administration of school affairs was marked by three important reforms: the reorganization of the building department and elimination of abuses; the purchase, in the open market, of better and cheaper schoolbooks; and the intro- duction of a scientific system of physical culture. The good record he thus made aided him materially in his first campaign for congress against one of the strongest men the democrats could put up, Edward C. Kehr. His majority was a little over three thousand. This he increased at each one of the ten subsequent elections until it reached the unprecedented figure of twenty-five thousand.
In congress he proved a studious and industrious worker, paying closest atten- tion to the wants and interests of his constitutents. His schooling as a newspaper man stood him in good stead, so that from the start he was familiar with all the great national questions. True to his democratic instincts he became a champion of individual liberty and popular rights against the many attempts to restrict them, opposed all measures unduly to restrict immigration and as a member of the committee on labor occupied a rather independent position as between capital and labor, always voting for what he believed to be for the best interests of the country.
Mr. Bartholdt was for many years chairman of the committee on public buildings and grounds and it was proved by statistics that during his chairmanship more public buildings were erected in the country than were in existence when he took charge of that committee. He originated the plan of locating postoffice buildings, especially in large cities, close to the railroad station and of erecting, instead of monumental structures, plain buildings affording ample natural light and ventilation to those at work in them. The new St. Louis postoffice building, for which he stood sponsor, is generally regarded as a model in this respect.
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