USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri, vol. 2 > Part 31
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A native of Pennsylvania, he was born in Coatesville, Chester county, Octo- ber 18, 1838, a son of John and Eliza (Schraek) Holmes. His youthful days were spent under the parental roof and he attended the public schools to the age of about eighteen years, when he sought the opportunities of the growing west, arriving in St. Louis in September, 1856. In April of the following year he established the lumber business of which he remained the head for forty- three years, a business that grew with the development of the city, becoming one of its foremost commercial interests. He was president of the company until 1900, when he resigned, but he ceased to take an active part in its affairs only a brief time prior to his demise. He ranked, too, with the leading financiers of the city and on the 3d of March, 1915, resigned as a member of the board of directors of the National Bank of Commerce, with which he had been associated for many years. Throughout his business career he seemed to realize the full value of every opportunity and utilized his time and efforts in such a way that notable results accrued. A contemporary biographer, writing of him while he was still a factor in the world's work, said: "Ilis own growth in the business world was based upon the substantial qualities of eeaseless activity, of well directed energy and of careful utilization of the advantages which business constantly offers. He made for himself a market through the honorable methods which he maintained in all business connections, his word becoming recognized as a synonym for commereial integrity. At length, in 1900, he resigned the presidency of the John A. Holmes Lumber Company, being succeeded by his son, while he remained as chairman of the board of directors. Ile has also ex- tended the scope of his business interests at various times and was a director in the National Bank of Commerce, the Hydraulie Pressed Brick Company, the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri and the American Credit Indemnity Company."
During the Civil war period Mr. Holmes became a member of the United States Reserve Corps in the Third Regiment, enlisting in 1861, and served until after the elose of hostilities.
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On the 18th of September, 1867, occurred the marriage of Mr. Holmes and Miss Belle Robb, who was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is a daugh- ter of Archimedes Robb. They became the parents of two sons and two daugh- ters : Mrs. Isabelle Keech ; Florence R., now the wife of Dr. Fred Woodruff ; Robert ; and John Howard.
Politically Mr. Holmes was always a stalwart republican from the organiza- tion of the party until the time of his demise. No good work done in the name of charity or religion sought his aid in vain. He was continually extending a helping hand to those who needed assistance, yet in all of his benevolences closely followed the Biblical injunction not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth. In every way he was entirely free from ostentation and display, yet there was about him not the least shadow of mock modesty. For a half century he was a devoted member of the Second Presbyterian church of St. Louis and long served as chairman of its board of trustees. Everything which pertained to the city's welfare was of interest to him and his cooperation was largely given to all movements relative to the public. In fact he left the im- press of his individuality and ability in large measure upon the financial and commercial enterprises of St. Louis, its educational, political, charitable and religious activities. Ile was constantly reaching out along broadening lines for the benefit of mankind and he gave to every enterprise or project which he espoused the benefit of intelligent, active and forceful support. He was honored by all who knew him and his memory remains as a blessed benediction to those with whom he came in contact.
15 Gerhard
Thomas Slebin Gerhart
31TII preseience and discernment of what the future has in store W for this great and growing western city, and with intelligent anticipation of opportunities, Thomas Slevin Gerhart has be- eome a dynamie force in the real estate cireles of St. Louis, the extent and importance of his operations in this field plaeing him in a most prominent position in the ranks of the city's representative business men. His birth occurred here October 25, 1866, his parents being Peter G. and Octavia ( Flandrin) Gerhart, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work. After attending publie and private schools he continued his studies under private instruction and entered business life in association with his father, who was long well known by reason of his extensive real estate operations here. Undoubtedly one factor in the success of Thomas Slevin Gerhart is that he has continued in the field in which he embarked as a young man and as the years have passed he has continuously studied every phase of the business and examined into every situation bearing upon real estate dealings, so that he has long been known as one of the most successful operators in this line in St. Louis. Notably energetie, he carries to each business problem the determination to find the successful solution thereto. An intelligent study of trade conditions and close observation of the trend of the city's growth have enabled him to make investments which have yielded rich returns and inaugurated eras of general improvement in different portions of the city.
A man of original ideas and abundant resourcefulness, as well as keen per- ception and good judgment, Thomas Slevin Gerhart has had the happy faculty of presenting his views and formulating his plans in such a manner as to make them attractive to the public; and success in every venture has followed as a natural sequence. On the Ist of January. 1904, the Weisels-Gerhart Real Estate Company was incorporated. This is probably the largest company of the kind in St. Louis, doing a business confined entirely to acting as agents for others in large real estate transactions. Their clients include many of the prominent capitalists of this and other cities and their volume of business in both finan- eial and real estate transfers has now reached mammoth proportions. Mr. Gerhart is president and Mr. Henry R. Weisels is vice president of this com- pany which has most commodious and handsomely appointed offices at the south- east corner of Eighth and Chestnut streets. So close and careful has been his study of the real estate market that his valuation of property has been accepted as authority, as are his opinions eoneerning the possible diminution or rise in values. Ile seems to have almost intuitive pereeption concerning what the en- suing years will develop in real estate operations and yet all this is the result of the most close and discriminating study and logical deduetion. Aside from
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his connection with the Weisels-Gerhart Company, he is the vice president of the P. G. Gerhart Investment Company, a holding company of his father's estate, is president of the Thomas S. Gerhart Realty & Financial Company, a holding corporation of his personal estate, and a director in numerous other corporations where his opinions constitute a vital force in successful manage- ment.
With laudable ambition to win success, Mr. Gerhart is not unmindful of his opportunities for advancing the city's interests and upbuilding, and through- out his entire connection with real estate interests has never been content to hold property merely as an investment but has always made it his custom to improve his holdings in the most attractive way and thus St. Louis has been a direct beneficiary of his labors. He is one of the prominent and popular mem- bers of the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange, of which he has been a director for two consecutive terms, and he is also a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce. In connection with those organizations he has done effective work for the city's welfare and progress through the exploitation of its resources and the establishment of its financial and business interests upon a safe founda- tion. While continuously putting forth effort for the growth of the city his activities have always been tempered by a safe conservation that builds upon a solid basis.
On the 15th of January, 1891, Mr. Gerhart was married to Miss Martha Lillian Brown, the eldest daughter of William Brown, founder and president of the Pioneer Steam Keg Works. To Mr. and Mrs. Gerhart have been born five children : Peter George, who was named in honor of his paternal grand- father; Marian Octavia; Martha Lillian and Octavia Flandrin, all at home ; and William Brown, who was named in honor of his maternal grandfather. The family residence is at No. 4609 Westminster place and Mr. Gerhart also has a summer home on Gratiot Beach, near Port Huron, Michigan. Mr. Ger- hart is an ardent sportsman and is a member of various hunting and fishing clubs. He is also connected with a number of other social organizations and belongs to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and to the Masonie fra- ternity, in which he has taken the degrees of the Chapter, the Commandery, the Scottish Rite bodies and of Moolah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. An at- tractive and pleasing personality makes him popular with a host of friends. While his abilities have brought him leadership in his special line of activity, he is a man of democratic spirit, always approachable and courteous, but one to whom the world instinctively pays deference by reason of his substantial and manly qualities as well as his success.
of G. Woerner.
J. Gabriel Woerner
GABRIEL WOERNER, who achieved high distinction as a publie official, jurist, author, publieist, and in other directions, was born in Moeringer, Wurttemberg, Germany, April 28, 1826, the youngest of fourteen children. He came with his parents to this country when he was seven years of age. After living for four years in Philadelphia, the family came to St. Louis in 1837, where the father, a contractor or archi- tect by occupation, died in 1849.
Gabriel received but a seant school education, but with that earnestness and zeal which were characteristic of him throughout his life, he improved every opportunity to obtain knowledge, and by his own efforts developed the splendid intellect with which nature had endowed him.
Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen he clerked in country stores at Springfield and Waynesville, then small villages in the Ozark mountains, in the interior of Missouri. A lover of nature in boyhood, to this experience in the backwoods may be traced, perhaps, the aroma of the woods and fields that charmingly asserts itself here and there in the works of fiction but based upon his own experiences in this region of Missouri, written by him in later life. And there, too, he received those first impressions of backwoods polities which are so realistically portrayed in his story of "Love, Politics and War," published more than fifty years later.
Upon his return to St. Louis, having determined to become a printer, he entered the office of the German Tribune as a lowly "printer's devil," and by rapid stages rose successively to pressman, foreman, editor and proprietor, gath- ering during this period a vast store of practical information, of great value to him in his subsequent career.
Meanwhile, when barely twenty-one, sympathizing with the German revo- lutionists of 1848, he had gone abroad, with the intention of participating in that struggle for the establishment of liberal government; on his arrival iu the Fatherland he found that his own American ideas and advanced political con- vietions were not in such entire accord with the views of the insurgents as to call for his military participation in the movement. During the two succeed- ing years, however, he contributed as war correspondent of the New York Herald and the St. Louis Tribune, many articles of great value and exceeding interest from the seat of war.
Returning to America, which he now more than ever realized as his coun- try, he purchased the Tribune, changing its polities, in accordance with his own convictions, from whig to democratic, and stanehly supported the great Missouri statesman, Thomas H. Benton. In 1852 he severed his connection with this paper.
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He entered upon the study of the law and was admitted to the bar in 1855. IIis genuinely democratic nature, his great zeal and vigor, and his fidelity to the interests of his elients, coupled with his native ability in conducting their litiga- tion by honorable means to a successful issue before court or jury, gathered about him an extensive and loyal clientele and placed him almost immediately in the front rank of the prominent lawyers of those days. Incidents of his professional career and stories of his peculiar legal victories in those early times when individuality of counsel counted for more than in later days, were rem- iniscently recounted for many years among his then contemporaries, probably none of whom now remain.
During the trying period of the Civil war, harmonizing with the views of Benton and Blair, he was a strong Union or war democrat, and for a time was in the military service. IIe twice cast his ballot for Abraham Lincoln as being the presidential candidate then most nearly representing his own views. After the suppression of the rebellion, Woerner was the uncompromising opponent of the unjust and oppressive reconstruction measures. He was at all times con- sistent and firm in his political convictions and a stanch supporter of the dem- ocratic party, save when that party was untrue to its own essential principles.
He showed always a deep-rooted aversion to the trickery and duplicity so largely prevalent in practical polities, never tolerated it nor temporized with it, and was frank and fearless at all times in announcing his political views. Yet, although he never sought office, it is a significant recognition of his sterling worth, as a man of the people in the best sense of the word, that he was early in life called to the public service, with which he was connected thereafter, in one capacity or another, for an almost unbroken period of forty years, and from which he retired with an enviable and absolutely unsullied record, enjoy- ing the confidence, respect and esteem of the members of all political parties, and beloved by the public in general.
Beginning in 1853 with the clerkship in the then recorder's court and his reappointment in 1854, and then being elected clerk of the Board of Aldermen in 1856, he was continued in office through successive elections by the people, sometimes in the face of decisive defeat of the ticket upon which he ran, until the end of the year 1894, when he retired from public life. He was twice elected city attorney (1857 and 1858), twice a member of the city council from the then first ward (serving 1861 to 1864), over which body he presided in 1862, and twice a member of the Missouri senate (in 1862 and 1866), in which body, although a member of a then post-bellum minority consisting of only six dem- ocrats, he was nevertheless looked to as a leader of the whole senate on impor- tant measures affecting the interests of the state.
Meanwhile, in 1864, he had responded to his party's forlorn call to stand for the city mayoralty, he being deemed best fitted to keep to the lowest figure a then certain and foregone adverse majority-a compliment fully justified by the result. In 1864-1865 he was appointed and prepared the official revision of the city ordinances, a valuable and well digested work, which was officially printed in 1866. From 1865 to 1870 he was associated in the practice of law with E. C. Kehr, as Woerner & Kehr.
In 1870, much to his own surprise, he was nominated for the office of judge of the probate court and subsequently elected. His services in that capacity gave
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such universal satisfaction to the public that he was kept in this office (in all probability thereby depriving the public of the benefit of his services in a far wider sphere of action ) continuously through six successive terms (being elected in 1870, 1876, 1880, 1882, 1886 and 1890), covering a period of twenty-four years. In his last eontest, in 1894, in spite of the overwhelming defeat of the democracy throughout the state, the figures clearly show that he would have been easily elected but for the fraud perpetrated upon the voters of a certain religio-political party, which cast a large and deciding vote that year, by its leaders falsely placing Judge Woerner upon the list of names marked by it for defeat because of alleged susceptibility and unfair religions prejudice-an absurdly unjust charge in his case, the fact being that no man ever lived who had more genuine toleration and liberality for the religious views of his fellow beings, nor any man who was ever freer from prejudice or less susceptible to narrow influences of any kind.
The tremendous hold Judge Woerner justly had upon the affections of the masses was typified in one of the most unique ineidents in the political history of St. Louis-one never paralleled before or since. In 1876, at the close of his first term as judge, he stood for renomination ; the politicians in control of the eity convention, however, brought about the nomination of another. So great was the storm of popular indignation at the action of the convention (principally in this respect ) that, in the face of the fact that the candidate named was worthy and had been regularly nominated, the party leaders to avert certain defeat were forced to undo the work of the convention, to prevail upon the candidates named to resign and again to eall together the convention to nominate a new ticket with J. G. Woerner upon it. At the ensuing election he led the democratic ticket and was elected over a popular opponent, Leo Rassieur, by a large ma- jority, although nearly all of the balance of the ticket was defeated.
During his ineumbeney of nearly a quarter of a century on the probate bench, Judge Woerner exhibited a kindness and courtesy which endeared him to the hearts of the people. Modest and unassuming, he was ever ready to help the widow and orphan, and those having their interests in charge, saving to needy ones many a dollar which would otherwise have been consumed in costs and lawyers' fees. Though the fees of the office were then the only com- pensation of the incumbent, yet Judge Woerner was the prime mover of much legislation that cheapened the cost of administration, and wherever he could he eut down the cost of administering upon estates with an unselfishness that deserved for him the gratitude of the many appearing before him in the probate court-a debt of gratitude sometimes appreciated, but generally benefiting those who never knew how they had profited, nor to whom their thanks were due.
It was manifested time and again -- and doubtless was the fact still more frequently without being manifested-that his measureless care and watch- fulness prevented the wrecking of estates by the unscrupulousness, and oftener by the ignorance or lack of discretion, on the part of those legally in charge thereof.
The greatest monument to the ability of Judge Woerner as a profound jurist-of such a peculiar nature that it is appreciable only by those versed in the law-lies in the marvel of his having raised this court, by his own force, from its natural, humble plane as a tribunal inferior to even the ordinary court
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of general original jurisdiction, to a position, during his incumbency, of dignity and authority recognized and respected by the highest courts, and by men of greatest legal attainments, and throughout the United States; and his judicial opinions and decisions on matters of probate law were quietly accepted as con- trolling by courts technically much higher in the scale of authority when called upon to review his decisions upon appeal.
When Gabriel Woerner retired from the bench it was an irremediable loss to the public. He laid down his arduous judicial labors, so long and so well borne, again to take up his profession, now in partnership with his son, and happy in the opportunity at last largely to devote his remaining years to those literary pursuits he loved so well. Thus he lived his last years in the content- ment of a happy home and domestic life-one shattered only at the end by the death of his beloved wife a scant year before his own.
The identification of Judge Woerner's name with American probate law is perpetuated in his great legal works covering that subject. During his long career as probate judge he perfected "The American Law of Administration," a work which involved a vast amount of labor and which exhibited an insight into the underlying principles of jurisprudence that at once made it the standard authority on that subject in the legal profession and in all the courts of the Union. This was followed by a complementary work entitled "The American Law of Guardianship." These two works together cover the whole field of probate law.
But public affairs, politics and law by no means filled the measure of his activities. Throughout his active life he was a deep student of literature in general. All the time which could be spared from the exacting duties of his everyday life may be said to have been profitably employed in this field, except in so far as his fondness for a game of chess, of which he was a proficient en- thusiast, or of a good game of whist or skaat, is to be considered as a partial exception. It was not in his nature to find rest in idleness; to him rest meant change of activity. He delighted in the philosophical works of Hegel and Goethe, whose optimistic logie accorded with his own views.
He was one of that small circle of great men who in years long past com- posed the St. Louis School of Philosophy, and numbered among his intimate friends such men as Denton J. Snider, Henry C. Brokmeyer, William T. Harris and men of that class-the foremost thinkers of the time. On the other hand, his talent of appreciation and broad sympathy enabled him to cull with sat- isfaction and pleasure the lighter gems of fiction.
An original thinker, with a wealth of romance as well as logie in his nature, innumerable short contributions from his pen, most of them anonymous, have from time to time brightened the pages of periodicals and newspapers, both in the German and English languages, in which he was equally proficient. Judge Woerner also wrote a drama entitled "Die Sklavin," which has taken high rank in the dramatic world, and has been produced both in German and English in most of the larger cities of the country scores of times. In its main features it was imitated in later years, on a lower plane, by professional playwrights, in "The White Slave" and similar plays. As a critic, too, he was keen and in- cisive, and few men were better judges of literary merit.
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In the realm of fietion he also achieved distinction. Besides several popular novels written in his early years, his romanee entitled "The Rebel's Daugh- ter," published just before his death, at onee took a permanent place among the elassie novels in literature. This work is written in a refreshing style pe- culiar to the author. The faseinating tale is eouehed in most charming language, albeit where the story requires, in a style strong and powerful. It constitutes, as a whole, a word picture which brings ont with such lifelike distinetness the delicate lights and shadows of the genuine American spirit of the days and seenes of which it treats and the mission of the German-American therein, that it earries the conviction that the writer is not only complete master of his sub- jeet, but has himself been a part of it. And it is and will be of great value for all time in preserving with great fidelity and accuracy a typical and fading phase of the spirit and development of American life. The work is much more than "A Story of Love, Politics and War," as the author calls it. One who knows anything of the life and character of the author ean read between the lines the details of the eareer of a man devoted to principle and unswerving in his adherence to the right, for the early chapters, in depieting the life of "Vietor Waldhorst," are largely doing the same for the author himself. One who knew the men of the days of which the book treats ean see, through the veil of the story, represented by many of its prominent characters, distinguished war-time Missourians, the characterizations in some instances being startling in their accuraey.
Judge Woerner was serupulously honorable and honest. He was the shining exeeption, in that he refused to yield to the universal weakness of men to forget property, invisible and intangible to the tax collector, when swearing to tax returns ; J. G. Woerner returned for taxation every eent he owned.
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