USA > New York > Erie County > Memorial and family history of Erie County, New York, Volume I > Part 19
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In the winter of 1880 Mr. Tindle began business for himself, as a jobber, a few months afterward purchasing a stave mill in Canada, and beginning the manufacture of cooperage stock, but having the headquarters in Buffalo. Soon he extended his interests to other Canadian mills. His enterprises prospered, and he continued to conduct them till 1886, thereafter for some years devoting himself wholly to the jobbing industry. In 1888 he associated with him as partner his son-in-law, Willis K. Jackson, under the firm style of Thomas Tindle & Co. This period was an important era in Mr. Tindle's affairs, the busi- ness growing so rapidly that it became necessary again to engage in the manufacture of the stock dealt in by the concern. The steps taken to meet this necessity formed the beginnings of the great mill system now controlled by the firm of Tindle & Jackson in Michigan. To utilize the timber supply, the part- ners erected stave and saw-mills in several towns of that State, including Saginaw, Bellaire, Thompsonville, Gaylord, Nessen City, Freeland, Pellston, and Munissing. The firm have their own railroad to convey timber from the forests to the mills, and cut the greater part of the lumber sent to the saw-mills to be made into lumber, staves, heads, and other stock. Waste is
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avoided by every device known to the modern economics of manufacture. The combined industries furnish employment to about 1,000 hands, and the annual trade amounts approximately to $1,500,000. Aside from its central office at Buffalo, the firm has a branch office for marketing purposes at Minneapolis.
Mr. Tindle is a member and trustee of the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Methodist Union. For over thirty years he belonged to the A. O. U. W.
April 5, 1856, Mr. Tindle married Harriet Braithwaite of Ogdensburg, N. Y. Mrs. Tindle was born at Broomfleet, York- shire, England, which was also Mr. Tindle's birthplace. The surviving children are: Annette, now Mrs. Willis K. Jackson, who was born in 1861, and Frank T., born December 16, 1869. Mr. Frank T. Tindle is connected with his father's firm. In 1893 he married Clara M. Boyce, daughter of C. W. Boyce of Buffalo. Their children are: Harriet M., Mildred A., Clara F., and Frank W.
LEONARD DODGE occupies a distinctive place among Buffalo men of business. Local history can show few citizens who in equal degree with Mr. Dodge have united the care of large personal interests with the maintenance of a high stand- ard of public spirit.
The ancestors of the American branch of the Dodge family were among the early settlers of Rhode Island and Connecticut. John Dodge was born in 1644, in Northern England. In 1667, with his brothers, Israel and Truxton, he emigrated to this country, and settled in Rhode Island. He died in 1729. His children were: John, Jr., and David Britain, of whom the latter was born in 1691 and died in 1764. Jonathan Dodge, son of David Britain, was born at Block Island, R. I., in 1721, and died in 1794. Jonathan Dodge, Jr., son of the preceding, was born in 1747, in Colchester, Conn., and died in 1794. Alvan Dodge, son of Jonathan Dodge, Jr., was born in Colchester, Conn., May
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8, 1782. He removed to Warren, Herkimer County, N. Y. He married Mary Blount, by whom he had six children: Sarah, Cemantha, Alma, Alvin Leonard, Jonathan Wayne, and Mary Eliza. The family became residents of Lowville, Lewis County, N. Y., and from there in 1810, Mr. Dodge removed to Buffalo. He prospered in farming, and became an extensive land owner. He held many civic offices in Buffalo and Black Rock, and was appointed Magistrate of the County of Niagara. He died in Jannary, 1846.
Jonathan Wayne Dodge, son of Alvan Dodge, was born November 9, 1812. He was educated in the schools of Buffalo, and as a young man was a teacher in one of the first high schools in that section. He inherited a part of his father's land holdings, and was a farmer in Lancaster and Clarence. In 1864 he purchased a grist mill in Williamsville, where he settled in 1870, and where he died in November, 1889. Mr. Dodge was a Democrat and held many offices in the town of Clarence. In 1846 he was Supervisor of Lancaster.
March 29, 1838, Mr. Dodge married Charlotte Hull of Tona- wanda, who was born in Canada October 3, 1817. Their children were: Alma, born March 8, 1839; Alvan, born June 1, 1840; Leonard, born May 18, 1844; Henry Wright, born Novem- ber 30, 1850, and Martha Eliza, born March 13, 1855. While the family were living in Clarence, Mrs. Dodge died. February 26, 1865, Mr. Dodge married his second wife, Marie A. Strickler, daughter of Jacob and Catherine H. (Correll) Strickler of Clarence. The issue of this union was one son, J. Arthur C. Dodge, who was born April 2, 1871.
Leonard Dodge was educated in the public schools, at Clarence Academy and the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y. After leaving school he learned the milling busi- ness in the old Erie Mills at Black Rock, where he remained four years. In 1864 he went to Williamsville and engaged in milling, continuing until his mill was burned in 1894. In 1872 Mr. Dodge removed to Buffalo, where he engaged in the whole-
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sale provision trade, carrying on this business and his Williams- ville milling enterprise. In 1885 he relinquished his provision business to devote himself to grain and elevating interests. In 1886 the Frontier Elevator was built by a stock company of which Mr. Dodge became Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager, offices which he has held continuously ever since, and in 1907 he was elected President of the Western Elevating Association. Since 1896 he has served as trustee of the Western Elevating Association. Since 1896 he has served as trustee of the Western Savings Bank, and has been its Vice- President since 1901. He is one of the charter members of the Commonwealth Trust Company, of which he was for several years a trustee.
Mr. Dodge's connection with the Buffalo Board of Trade began in 1864. As a member of the old Merchants' Exchange he did such valuable work that when, in 1903, that body became the Chamber of Commerce, he was elected its first President. In the movement for improving the canals he was one of the most efficient workers, and it was during Mr. Dodge's term of office that the act for the improvement of the canal system was passed. As a member of the Charter Revision Commission, he gave many months of gratuitons service for the benefit of the City of Buffalo.
A life-long Democrat, Mr. Dodge has with one exception never accepted any political office. In 1869 he was elected Supervisor of the town of Amherst, and served four years, being Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in 1871.
Mr. Dodge is a 32d degree Mason. Since 1865 he has been a member of Hiram Lodge, and he is also affiliated with Buffalo Chapter, No. 71, Royal Arch Masons; Buffalo Council, R. & S. M .; Lake Erie Commandery, Knights Templar; Buffalo Consistory, and Ismailia Temple. For many years he has been a member of the Young Men's Association.
May 5th, 1869, Mr. Dodge married Emily P. Hotchkiss, daughter of Hiram Hotchkiss of Buffalo. Mrs. Dodge died
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December 31, 1872, leaving one daughter, Mamre E., who married Charles H. Bailey of Buffalo, and whose children are: Leonard H., and Mamre. September 20, 1876, Mr. Dodge again married, his second wife being Emilie P., daughter of the late Col. Richard Flach of Buffalo.
GEORGE ALFRED RICKER is of New England ancestry. George and Maturin Ricker, brothers, came from England to Denver, New Hampshire, in 1670, and in 1672 respectively. Both were killed by Indians on June 4, 1706, at Garrison Hill in Dover, N. H. George Ricker married Eleanor Evans. Ephraim, son of George, was a soldier in the Colonial and French wars, taking part in the Crown Point expedition in 1748. Moses Ricker, son of Ephraim, was a soldier, serving in the French and Indian War, and also in the Revolution. Henry Ricker, son of Moses, had a son, Charles, grandfather of our subject, and who served in the navy in the War of 1812. He had a son, Charles Clement Ricker, father of George A. Ricker, who at an early age entered the United States Navy, and served with distinction throughout the Civil War, and for several years thereafter, as Acting Master's Mate and Acting Ensign on the U. S. frigate, Santee; Acting Master on the U. S. ironclad, Nahant, during which time he took part in all the fights in which the ironclads of the South Atlantic Squadron were engaged. He later served on the ironclad, Passaic, and did special duty off Charleston. After its evacuation he com- manded the U. S. ship, F. A. Ward, and the same year was promoted Acting Volunteer Lieutenant. He later served on the U. S. ship, Supply, in the East India Squadron in the China and Japan seas, and received from President Andrew Johnson a commission as Acting Volunteer Lieutenant. The succeeding year, returning to the United States, on August 30, 1868, he received his honorable discharge from the service. For many years after leaving the Navy, Lieutenant Ricker continued to follow the sea as a profession. In 1880 he retired and came to Buffalo, becoming Superintendent of the Erie Elevator.
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Charles Clement Ricker married Sarah M. Joy of Ports- mouth, N. H. The children were: George A., and Charles William.
George Alfred Joy Ricker was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, June 30, 1863. When seven years old he began to go to sea with his father, and continued a sea-faring life until he was fifteen years of age, during which period he made thir- teen voyages across the Atlantic and lived for two years in Liverpool, England. In the eight years which he spent mostly in following the sea, young Ricker studied at Vernon Academy, Liverpool, and with some instructors at Portsmouth. In 1880 he came to Buffalo. In February, 1881, at the age of sixteen, he joined the engineer corps of the Erie Railroad. In 1882 he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, taking a special civil engineering course for three years.
In 1885 he became Division Engineer of the Erie. In 1886 he went to Montana as a member of the engineer corps of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Returning to Buffalo in 1887, he opened offices for private practice. Since that time Mr. Ricker has attained high standing in his profession. Among the positions held by him may be mentioned that of Second Assist- ant to Roadmaster, Buffalo & Rochester Division of the Erie R. R. (1885-1886); Assistant Engineer, Helena & Red Mountain Railroad (1886); First Assistant to Roadmaster, Buffalo Division of the Erie R. R. (1886-1887), and Engineer of the Buffalo Creek Railroad. In 1890 he located and surveyed the line of the Niagara Gorge Railroad, which was built under his direction; of this road he is Chief Engineer. He built the lines of the Buffalo Traction Company, the Buffalo and Depew Rail- road, and projected its extension to Rochester; and is Chief Engineer and a member of the Board of Directors of the Buffalo & Rochester Traction Company. At the time of the agitation of the grade crossings issue, Mr. Ricker was employed by the Lumber Exchange to examine the engineering questions involved. He was Chief Engineer of the first Pan-American
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Exposition Company, and accompanied President Mckinley and Gen. Alger, then Secretary of War, on the occasion when Mr. Mckinley drove the first stake on Cayuga Island, which was originally intended for the site of the Exposition. He is also President and General Manager of the Buffalo Testing Laboratory.
In politics Mr. Ricker is a Democrat. He has three times served the city as a member of the Civil Service Commission, and for twenty years has been a member of the Civil Service Reform Association.
Mr. Ricker was one of the organizers and second President of the Engineers' Society of Western New York, is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of the Institute of Engineers of the Republic of Chile, the Historical Society, trustee of the Charity Organization Society, and for six years trustee of the Unitarian Church. He is a member of the Buffalo, Ellicott and Technology clubs, and President of the last named.
November 24, 1887, Mr. Ricker married Bessie H. Turner, daughter of Frederick M. Turner and Agnes Cutler of Buffalo.
JOHN GEORGE WICKSER, former State Treasurer, Republican State Committeeman, and President of the Buffalo German Insurance Company, is a typical example of a man who owes his rise in life to his own abilities. Mr. Wickser is one of Buffalo's leading business men, and has also enjoyed high political honors.
Mr. Wickser is the only son of John Jacob Wickser, who was born in the Canton of Glarus, Switzerland, in 1828, came to Buffalo in 1850, and died in 1888. He was in mercantile busi- ness in Buffalo for many years, and served three years in the army during the Civil War. In 1855 he married Eva Catherine Becker, daughter of Frederick Becker, and sister of Philip Becker, formerly Mayor of Buffalo. Mrs. Wickser was born in Germany in 1834 and died in 1905. John George Wickser
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was born in Buffalo October 17, 1856. He attended Public School No. 1, and Central High School, and when sixteen years old went to work for the Forest Lawn Cemetery Association, and afterward for Smith & Mixer, lumber merchants. Later he entered the employ of the Buffalo German Insurance Company in a clerical capacity. After three years with this corporation, he began business for himself, at the age of 20 becoming a partner in the firm of Becker & Wickser, the senior member being Henry Becker. The firm was engaged in the saddlery business at No. 555 Main street, remaining there until 1880, when the business was removed to No. 9 Court street, where it now is conducted. In 1896 Mr. Wickser became a member of the firm of Philip Becker & Co., which was afterward changed to a corporation of which he became Vice-President, which office he now holds. The company conducts an extensive wholesale grocery business at Nos. 266-271 Pearl street. Mr. Wickser has also dealt in real estate to a large extent, and is President of the Buffalo German Insurance Company. Mr. Wickser's first service as a public man was in 1903 and 1904, when he was State Treasurer, to which office he had been elected in the fall of 1902, running far ahead of his ticket in Erie County. Owing to his numerous business interests, he was not a candidate for reelection. Early in 1905 he was appointed by Governor Higgins President of the State Prison Commission for a term of four years. Both as State Treasurer and as head of the Prison Commission, Mr. Wickser displayed administra- tive ability of a very high order, and brought to his work the same fidelity and care which he bestows on his private business. The result has been a notably creditable public record. In the fall of 1905 the substantially unanimous wish of the Repub- lican party in Buffalo was that Mr. Wickser should take the nomination for Mayor, and great pressure was brought to bear to induce him to do so. But personal reasons made it impossible for him to accept the proffered honor.
April 13, 1886, Mr. Wickser married Katherine A. Houck, deceased 1907, daughter of the late Philip Houck of Buffalo.
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The children of this union are: Philip J. Wickser, a graduate of Cornell University, class of 1908, and Ruth Houck Wickser.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER DOUGLAS is of Scottish ancestry, belonging to one of the most ancient and honorable houses in Scotland, and one which is connected with many of the most interesting events in Caledonian his- tory. His grandfather, Alexander Douglas, was born in the Parish of Foss on Loch Tummel, Scot- land, in 1781, and came to America about 1800. He first settled near Johus- town, Fulton County, N. Y., and there married Elizabeth Macbeth. They removed to the town of Fenner, Madison County, where they lived till 1830, when they removed to Covington, Wyoming County, N. Y., where Mr. Douglas resided till his WILLIAM A. DOUGLAS. death. His children were: John A .; Susan, who married Daniel Cameron and afterward lived in Mt. Vernon, O .; Isabella, who married Duncan Stewart, and was a resident of York, N. Y .; Ellen, who married Charles Stewart, and lived in Stewartville, Minn., and Alexander, who married first Isabelle Stewart of York, N. Y., and after her decease married Margaret Campbell of Wheatland, Monroe County, N. Y. .
John A. Douglas, son of Alexander Douglas and father of William A. Douglas of Buffalo, was an esteemed and influential resident of York, Livingston County, N. Y. He was a farmer
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all his life, and in 1824 purchased an interest in the 300-acre tract taken up in the town of York in 1812 by the brothers, Daniel, John and James McNab. Mr. Douglas was a man of quiet life who devoted himself to his family, his church and his farm. He was of strict religious ideas, a Presbyterian of the old school, being connected with the United Presbyterian branch of that denomination, and for many years was a deacon of the church. His standards of morals and conduct were of the highest, and he exemplified them in his own career.
October 27, 1842, he married Christia McNab, born May 2, 1818, a daughter of Daniel and Isabella Armstrong McNab. The Armstrongs and the McNabs came as a part of an emigra- tion movement, about the beginning of the last century, toward the land West of the Genesee River. Christia McNab Douglas was a woman of noble character. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas were the parents of six children: Watson, born February 1, 1844, died 1875; Isabella, born in December, 1850, died 1851; Eliza- beth, born March 7, 1854, died 1858; William A., born April 4, 1859; John F., born June 9, 1861, and Annabel, born January 30, 1863. Of the above children, John A. Douglas died Decem- ber 7, 1881. Christia M. Douglas died in 1884.
William A. Douglas was born at York, Livingston County, N. Y., April 4, 1859. He received his education in the common schools, and the State Normal School at Geneseo, N. Y., gradu- ating in 1882. He then went to Des Moines, Iowa, and for the succeeding three or four years was principal of schools in that locality.
In 1886 he entered the University of Columbia Law School and School of Political Science, in the City of New York. At the end of two years he graduated with distinguished honors, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws, cum laude. While attending law school he studied in the office of Wetmore & Jenner, in New York City.
After his graduation in 1888 Mr. Douglas came to Buffalo, where he held clerkships in various law offices for a time.
In 1889 Mr. Douglas was admitted to the bar, and the fol-
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lowing year began practice by himself in Buffalo. Many important interests are entrusted to his care, and he is a prominent figure in various industrial enterprises in Buffalo, Chicago and elsewhere. In 1896 he was appointed Receiver of the Springville National Bank.
In politics Mr. Douglas has always been a Democrat. In November, 1894, he was appointed a member of the Board of School Examiners by Mayor Bishop, serving two years.
In the early '90's Mr. Douglas became actively interested in the examination of tenement house conditions in Buffalo, and with others succeeded in having passed stringent ordinances regulating tenement conditions. The rules proposed by Mr. Douglas and his associates are those which exist today as modi- fied by the Tenement House Act of 1901, and were the model followed by the Tenement House Commission, of which Mr. Douglas was a member, appointed by Governor Roosevelt, and which framed laws for Greater New York and Buffalo.
Mr. Douglas was also a powerful factor in causing the Common Council of Buffalo to adopt an ordinance providing for the licensing of employment agencies. Before the present State law on the subject was enacted, Mr. Douglas, with Dr. Wende, Dr. Pryor, and Mr. Williams Lansing, induced the Common Council to make an appropriation of $6,000 for a free bath- house on the Terrace, which was built.
In recognition of his many services in the cause of public health, Governor Higgins appointed Mr. Douglas a member of the New York State Tuberculosis Hospital in the Adirondacks. This office he resigned in 1905. In 1908 he was appointed one of the Board of Managers of the Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea, N. Y. He is a member of the Charity Organization Society, and for many years a trustee. He belongs to the Civil Service Reform Association, a charter member of the Municipal League, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Historical Society, the Natural History Society, the National Geographical Society, and the State Bar Association; belongs to the Buffalo,
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Saturn, Ellicott and Country clubs and a charter member of the Liberal Club.
October 3, 1892, Mr. Douglas married Alice Charlotte Hedstrom, daughter of Eric L. and Anna M. (Klampfer) Hedstrom of Buffalo. They have two children, Anne, born October 5, 1893, and Eric, born April 16th, 1895.
JOSEPH B. MAYER is one of the foremost men in the country in traction interests and electric development, and to give an account of his career is to tell the story of signal achievements in the business world.
Mr. Mayer was born in Freiburg, Baden, Germany, January 4, 1850, graduated from the Freiburg Gymnasium in 1866. In 1868 he came to the United States and settled in Buffalo, where for four years he was employed as a bookkeeper. In 1872 he began importing diamonds, forming with Louis Weill a part- nership which lasted till 1876. Thereafter up to 1892 Mr. Mayer carried on the business alone.
From 1892 to 1895 he devoted himself to real property inter- ests, becoming the organizer and manager of syndicates which purchased large tracts of land in Buffalo and vicinity, made improvements and put the property on the market. In 1895 he organized the Buffalo Traction Company, of which he was Vice- President, Treasurer and General Manager until the corpora- tion was absorbed by the Buffalo Street Railway Company in 1899. Throughout the mergers, whose outcome was the Inter- national Railway Company, Mr. Mayer continued to hold his interests in Buffalo traction enterprises, and he retains his stock in the present company.
At Lima, O., he organized the Lima Railway Company and the Lima Electric Light and Heating Companies; at Louisville, Ky., he established the Louisville Lighting Company, and in Indiana was organizer of the Fort Wayne Lighting Company. Meanwhile in co-operation with the Widener-Elkins Philadel- phia syndicate Mr. Mayer was concerned in a gigantic consoli-
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dation of properties controlling 600 miles of railroad in Ohio. Another great merger engineered by Mr. Mayer was the consolidation known as the Western New York & Pennsylvania Traction Company.
But what is probably Mr. Mayer's crowning achievement thus far is the organization and financing of the Buffalo & Lake Erie Traction Company, which has established a through line of electric road communication between Buffalo and Erie, Pa.
Mr. Mayer is a Democrat, and he has often been urged to become a candidate for elective office, but has always declined. In 1895 he accepted the appointment of Civil Service Commis- sioner, and filled that position with efficiency and credit.
Mr. Mayer is affiliated with Washington Lodge of Masons, is an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, a life member of the German Young Men's Association, belongs to the Council of the Charity Organization Society, and is deeply interested in the Free Kindergarten, and many similar societies. He is a member of the Buffalo, Country, Ellicott and Liberal clubs, and the Manhattan and Lawyers' clubs of New York City; is a former President of the Temple Beth-Zion, and a prominent member of that organization. He has traveled extensively in this country and Europe.
July 15, 1874, Mr. Mayer married Belle Falck of Buffalo.
ALEXANDER MELDRUM. For almost twenty-five years Alexander Meldrum was one of Buffalo's leading merchants. He was a pioneer of the broader development of the dry-goods trade in Western New York. Alexander Meldrum was of Scottish birth. He came of an ancient and esteemed Fifeshire family. His parents, Thomas and Janet Meldrum, were well- known residents of Kenoway, Fifeshire.
Alexander Meldrum was born near Kenoway, November 3d, 1833. He was early apprenticed to a dry-goods house in Markinch. When twenty-two years old Mr. Meldurm came to
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the United States, locating in Boston, where he entered the employ of Kinmonth's store, afterward Hogg, Brown & Taylor. He was soon promoted from salesman to the responsible post of buyer, and remained with the firm until 1867, when he came to Buffalo, being accompanied by the late Robert B. Adam, and Albert Whiting. Immediately after his arrival in Buffalo, Mr. Meldrum and his associates formed the copartnership of Adam, Meldrum & Whiting, doing a general dry-goods business. In 1869 Mr. Whiting retired, and the concern became Adam & Meldrum. In 1875 William Anderson was admitted partner, the firm style being changed to Adam, Meldrum & Anderson. The connection of Mr. Meldrum with the business lasted until his death in 1891. He also held a controlling interest in the Dayton Drygoods Company of Dayton, Ohio, and was the sole owner of the Queen City Underwear Company of Buffalo.
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