History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 1

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 886

USA > Ohio > History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II > Part 1

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GENEALOGY COLLECTION

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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02405 6142

HISTORY OF

THE WESTERN RESERVE

BY HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON

H. G. CUTLER Editor of the Lewis Publishing Company

And a staff of Leading Citizens collaborated on the Counties and Biographies

ILLUSTRATED

VOL. II

1910 THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK

$22.50

Midland

History of the Western Reserve.

364580

HON. MARCUS A. HANNA, late United States senator from Ohio, a resident of Cleve- land for over half a century and one of the great industrial and commercial powers of the middle west, did not reach the height of his political and public renown until his life was nearly spent. Since he was a young man he had always given his hearty indorsement and generous support to the Republican party, but was approaching his sixtieth year before he decided to throw the full strength of his execu- tive, diplomatic and administrative powers into the management of a national campaign for his party. At that late period in his life it was only his long and sincere friendship for Mc- Kinley which decided him to accept the chair- manship of the national committee and con- duct the campaign for his personal and presi- dential favorite on the same principles of care- ful organization, energy, good nature and fair- ness toward competitors which had won him pronounced leadership in the business and industrial world. Another important element of strength in the personnel of the national chairman was the fact that although he had been a large employer of labor for many years he had never developed into an autocrat, but had been ever ready to listen patiently to the presentation of alleged grievances from his employees and was on record as a consistent champion of arbitration in the settlement of differences between labor and capital. The country still remembers the masterly cam- paign of 1896, conducted by Marc Hanna, and his fair and open methods were so recipro- cated by the Democracy as to make it an epoch in the history of national politics. It was a campaign also of great surprises, as several states which had heretofore gone Democratic were brought into the Republican column seemingly by the sheer personal force and magnetism of the chairman and his skilfully marshaled forces. Mr. Hanna's financial rescue of Mckinley in earlier times is no

secret, and there is no doubt that, despite the elevated statesmanship and character of Mc- Kinley, he virtually elected the president of 1896; and the love which the people generally bore the president-elect was brightly reflected on the great political captain, brought him into the halls of the United States senate and placed a splendid capsheaf upon the closing years of his life. In 1900 Mr. Hanna was honored with the degree of LL. D. by Kenyon College -- but Dr. Hanna would never sound natural to the thousands of his admirers and friends. He will always be remembered as Marc Hanna-one of the finest figures in the prac- tical affairs of the United States, a plain, rugged Roman character transplanted to America.

Marcus Alonzo Hanna, as he was christened, was born in Lisbon (then New Lisbon), Co- lumbiana county, Ohio, on the 24th of Sep- tember, 1837. In 1852 he located with other members of the family in Cleveland ; graduated from the city high school and the Western Reserve College at Hudson, and at the age of twenty entered the employ of the whole- sale house of which his father was the senior partner. After the decease of the latter in 1862, he continued in control of his interest until 1867, when the business was closed out. The young man then joined the firm of Rhodes and Company, the pioneer iron and coal con- cern in Cleveland. In 1877, through his con- trol of the business, the firm became M. A. Hanna and Company, and at his death in 1904 it was one of the largest establishments of the kind in the country. His business insight soon showed him the advantage of becoming identified with the transportation and financial interests of the locality, both being means in the moving and handling of the products of his mines and the materials of his business. For many years he was therefore connected with the building and navigation of the lake marine, among his specific interests which he held in

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this and other lines being those as director of the Globe Ship Manufacturing Company, president of the Union National Bank (or- ganized in 1884), president of the Chapin Mining Company (controlling some of the most productive iron mines in the Lake Supe- rior region ), and president of the Cleveland Street Railway Company. In 1885, by ap- pointment of President Cleveland, he served as director of the Union Pacific Railway Com- pany. The latter position was purely an hon- orary one, with no salary attached, but proved to be weighted with heavy responsibilities. In the fall of that year he was summoned to the west, and gave several weeks of his time to a careful consideration and judicious settlement of the labor troubles along the line. This work brought him into national prominence. In the previous year he had served as a dele- gate to the national Republican convention, and was likewise honored in 1888, his earnest support of John Sherman's presidential can- didacy in the latter having a strong bearing on his own political career.

Briefly retracing Mr. Hanna's business ca- reer, it should be noted that in 1872 he was one of the organizers of the Cleveland Trans- portation Company, which built a fine line of steamers for the Lake Superior iron trade, being at times its general manager and one of its directors. In 1881 he organized the West Republic Mining Company, of Marquette county, Michigan, of which he was iong presi- dent, and in the following year established the Pacific Coal and Iron Company, with head- quarters at St. Paul. In 1882 he purchased a controlling interest in the West Side Street Railway Company, and was at the head of the consolidated interests of the local lines at the time of his death. Further, as director of the Globe Iron Works, and as one of the founders and president of the Union National Bank, he materially assisted in making Cleve- land one of the leading shipbuilding and financial centers of the United States. He was also the builder and owner of the hand- some Euclid Avenue Opera House, and was for a number of years president of the Herald Publishing Company. So that Cleveland, as a city, is his debtor manyfold.

On March 2, 1897, Mr. Hanna was ap- pointed to the United States senate by Gov- ernor Bushnell to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Sherman to become secre- tary of state in the Mckinley cabinet. His term expired in January, 1898, when he was

elected for the full six years' term and was re- elected in 1904. During his service as United States senator Mr. Hanna never failed, when opportunity offered, to appear as a friend of peace and compromise in all industrial dis- putes, and in 1901 was appointed a member of the National Civic Federation, organized to consider the vexatious questions of trusts, tariff and taxation. The final verdict of his- tory will be that the nation at large has the deepest cause for gratitude to Marc Hanna because of his continuous and disinterested efforts to bring about more fraternal relations between the employer and employed. He died February 15, 1904.

FREDERICK L. TAFT .- A native son of the Western Reserve who is well upholding the prestige of a name honored in the annals of this historic section of the state of Ohio, and who has marked by distinctive personal ac- complishment a place of his own as a mem- ber of the bar, as judge of the court of com- mon pleas, and as a leader in the ranks of the Republican party in his native commonwealth, is Judge Frederick L. Taft, who is engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Cleveland, as a member of the representative firm of Smith, Taft & Arter, and who is a scion of one of the old and honored families of Trumbull county.

Frederick L. Taft was born in Braceville, Trumbull county, Ohio, on the Ist of Decem- ber, 1870, and is a son of Newton A. and Laura A. (Humphrey) Taft, both of whom were born in New England, where the re- spective families were founded in the colonial epoch of our national history. The ancestral line in which the genealogy of the subject of this review is traced is the same as that of the present distinguished president of the United States, to whom it has been given to significantly honor the name, the nation and his home state of Ohio. The family name has been linked with the history of Trumbull county, Ohio, since the pioneer days, and in the records touching that county may be found in this publication due representation of its members. Hon. Matthew Birchard, a great-uncle of him whose name initiates this article, was one of the early judges of the supreme court of the state of Ohio, and long held prestige as one of the leading legists and jurists of northern Ohio.

Judge Frederick L. Taft is indebted to the public schools of his native state for his early

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educational discipline, which included a course in the Newton Falls high school, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1886. He then entered Mount Union Col- lege, in which he was graduated in 1889 and from which he received the degree of Bache- lor of Arts. After teaching for a short period in the public schools of Trumbull county, he was matriculated in the Cincinnati Law School, and then carried forward a careful reading of law under-the effective preceptor- ship of Judge Joel W. Tyler. On the Ist of December, 1891, when twenty-one years of age, he was admitted to the bar of his native state.

Judge Taft, mindful of the exactions and responsibilities of his profession, entered into practice with singleness of devotion, and thus his success followed as a normal sequel, as he was amply fortified by natural predilection and effective technical training. He located at Cleveland, Ohio, and in May, 1898, he was appointed assistant county solicitor of Cuyahoga county, and of this office he con- tinued incumbent until October 1, 1901, when he resigned to devote his attention to the general practice of his profession, in which he has gained definite precedence and a se- cure reputation. He is now a member of the prominent law firm of Smith, Taft & Arter, whose clientage is of representative order and whose business is large and varied.

In 1906 Governor Harris appointed him to fill a vacancy on the bench of the court of common pleas of Cuyahoga county, and at the ensuing convention of the Republican party in the county he was nominated for the office by acclamation. He made an excel- lent record during the short time he presided on the bench, showing due judicial acumen and appreciation, but he met with defeat in the ensuing election, which was disastrous to the entire party ticket, though he ran several thou- sand votes better than the other judicial can- didate.

Judge Taft has been from the time of at- taining his majority an ardent and effective advocate of the cause of the Republican party, and his activities have been marked by good generalship and by numerous party prefer- ments. He was chairman of the Republican committee for the Twenty-first congressional district of Ohio in 1896 and of the Repub- lican executive committees for Cuyahoga county and the city of Cleveland in 1897. In

1900 he was a member of the state central committee, and he has served many times as a delegate to the city, county and state con- ventions of his party. He was chairman of the last two conventions of the Republican party in Cleveland-those of 1907 and 1908. In 1908 Judge Taft had the distinction of being a delegate to the national Republican convention, in Chicago, that nominated for the presidency his distinguished kinsman, President Taft, from the Twenty-first con- gressional district of Ohio.

As an appreciative member of the time- honored Masonic fraternity, Judge Taft has attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, after having duly completed the circle of the York Rite bodies. He is also identified with the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is district deputy of the Knights of Pythias, a member of the Sons of Veterans, and affiliated with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity and the Phi Delta Phi law fraternity. He also holds membership in the Sons of the Ameri- can Revolution, and is an active and valued member of the Cleveland Chamber of Com- merce. He holds membership in the Union Club of Cleveland and the Columbus Club, of Columbus, Ohio, besides which he is a mem- ber of the board of trustees of his alma mater, Mount Union College. Judge Taft and his wife are members of the First Methodist church of Cleveland.

On the 28th of October, 1901, was sol- emnized the marriage of Judge Taft to Miss Mary Alice Arter, daughter of Frank A. Arter, of Cleveland, and a sister of Charles K. Arter, one of his professional associates in the firm of Smith, Taft & Arter. Judge and Mrs. Taft have three sons, whose names, with respective dates of birth, are here noted : Kingsley Arter, July 19, 1903: Charles New- ton, December 14, 1904; and Frederick L., Jr., August 15, 1906.

GEORGE HAYDEN .- Among those who are ably upholding the high prestige of the bench and bar of the Western Reserve is Judge George Hayden, who is judge of the court of common pleas in Medina county, and who had previously gained prominence as a member of the bar of this, his native, county. He is a scion of one of the representative pioneer families of the Western Reserve, and it was

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his to honor this favored section by his gal- lant services as a soldier in the Civil war.

Judge Hayden was born in the township of Sharon, Medina county, Ohio, on the 5th of April, 1840, and is a son of Hiram K. and Emeline (Briggs) Hayden. His father was born in Springfield township, Summit county, which was then a portion of Medina county, on the 9th of August, 1815. He was a son of Samuel M. Hayden, a native of Litchfield county, Connecticut, and a member of a fam- ily which was founded in New England in the colonial epoch of our national history. Samuel M. Hayden came to the Western Re- serve in 1817 and settled in Wadsworth town- ship, Medina county, where he became promi- nent and influential as a citizen in the pioneer region. He reclaimed a considerable tract of land in what is now Summit county and later took up his abode in Sharon township, in Medina county, as at present constituted. Here both he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. The maiden name of his wife was Asenath Sprague, and her parents were numbered among the very early settlers of Medina county.

Hiram K. Hayden was sixteen years of age at the time of the family removal to Sharon township, and his early educational privileges were those afforded in the pioneer schools. He remained on the home farm until he had attained to his legal majority and eventually became the owner of a wild place, but which became a well improved landed estate of Sharon township, where he continued to be actively identified with agricultural pursuits during the remainder of his active career. He was a man of utmost rectitude, of strong and vigorous mentality and of indefatigable en- ergy, so that he contributed in due quota to the civic and material development and upbuilding of his home county, where he was ever held in unqualified confidence and esteem. He passed the closing years of his life in the city of Me- dina, where he died in 1893. In politics he was originally an old-line Whig, but he identified himself with the Republican party at the time of its organization and thereafter continued a zealous supporter of its cause. He held va- rious local offices of minor importance and was a man whose influence was ever exerted in support of worthy measures and enter- prises. Both he and his wife were devoted members of, and affiliated with, the Univer- salist church. As a young man, Hiram K. Hayden was united in marriage to Miss Eme-

line Briggs, who was then a resident of Sharon, Medina county. She was born in picturesque old Berkshire county, Massachu- setts, where she was reared and educated, and as a young woman she was a successful teacher in the schools of North Adams, Northamp- ton, Windham, Hillsdale and Taunton, Massa- chusetts. She was a daughter of Daniel and Abigail (Hathaway) Briggs, both of whom · were likewise natives of the old Bay state and members of staunch old families of colo- nial lineage. Mrs. Emeline Hayden was a woman of culture and of gracious and gentle personality, so that she drew to herself the warm regard of all who came within the sphere of her influence. She died in Sharon, in 1879. Of the three children, only the sub- ject of this sketch is now living.

Judge George Hayden, to whom this sketch is dedicated, gained his rudimentary education in the district schools of his native township and later continued his studies in a private school conducted by Professor Barnard, an able educator, in Medina. In the meanwhile he assisted in the work and management of the home farm.

With the outbreak of the Civil war there came to Judge Hayden the call of higher duty, and he made prompt response to President Lincoln's first request for volunteers. In Sep- tember, 1861, soon after attaining to his legal majority, he enlisted in Company A, Forty- second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and he re- verts with satisfaction to the fact that the commander of his regiment was Colonel James A. Garfield, who later was to attain to the rank of general and finally to become presi- dent of the United States. The command pro- ceeded to the front and with the same Judge Hayden took part in all engagements till his discharge, in all of which he acquitted himself with the gallantry of a true son of the repub- lic. He participated in the memorable siege of Vicksburg, as did also his brother, Henry S., who was a member of the same regiment, and during one of the engagements at this point the brother was wounded, dying Janu- ary 25, 1863. When lying almost at the point of death, the young soldier was placed upon a transport, in care of his brother, Judge Hay- den, and upon the same boat were about seven hundred other Union soldiers, the greater number of whom were suffering from wounds or other illness, so that the care of all de- volved upon a little band of not more than nine of those not afflicted. Henry S. Hayden

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died while en route to St. Louis, and so great were the care and tension which fell upon the subject of this sketch that he also became seriously ill after the death of his brother, and was finally sent home on surgeon's certifi- cate of disability. He received his honorable discharge at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, in 1863, and his health thereafter remained so greatly impaired that he was not again able to enter active service, though he did much in a private way to support the cause in which he had fought on the sanguinary fields of the south.

During the fall of 1861, Judge Hayden went to Hiram, Ohio, where he matriculated as a student in Hiram College, in which institu- tion he continued his studies for a short time, and until enlistment in the Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in the meanwhile devot- ing his attention to teaching at intervals in the public schools of Ohio. In 1876 he was elected clerk of the court of Medina county, of which office he remained incumbent, by re- election, for six consecutive years. In the meanwhile he had carefully prosecuted the study of law while clerk of courts, and with the added advantages of his coincident offi- cial experience, and at the expiration of his term of office as clerk of the courts he was admitted to the bar of Ohio, upon examina- tion before the supreme court, in Columbus, in March, 1881. He forthwith engaged in the general practice of his profession in Me- dina, where he met with distinctive success, and where he gained recognition as an able trial lawyer and safe and well fortified .coun- selor. He built up a practice that was of sub- stantial and representative order and he con- tinued to give his undivided attention to the same until Igoo, when he was elected judge of the court of common pleas for the term of five years. In 1905 he was chosen as his own suc- cessor in this office, and his second term will expire on the 14th of January, 1911. Judge Hayden bas shown in his services on the bench not only his broad, concise and practi- cal knowledge of the law, but also that he has the true judicial temperament, so that his course has met with unequivocal endorsement on the part of the bar of the county and the public in general. He maintains a high ap- preciation of his stewardship and his rulings have been marked by wise discrimination in the summing up of evidence and the applica- tion of the law to the cause presented. Few of his decisions have met with adverse ruling

in the higher courts, and he has shown un- abating energy in systematizing and expedit- ing the work of his court.

In politics Judge Hayden gives a staunch al- legiance to the Republican party, and he is ad- mirably fortified in his opinions as to matters of public polity and general political expedi- ency. He is a valued comrade of H. G. Blake Post, No. 169, Grand Army of the Republic, in Medina, and is identified with other organ- izations.

On the 17th of October, 1864, was sol- emnized the marriage of Judge Hayden to Miss Helen G. Brown, daughter of Joseph and Adelaide (Bentley) Brown, of Sharon town- ship, Medina county, Ohio, where she was born and reared. Joseph Brown was one of the representative farmers of Sharon town- ship, and both he and his wife continued to reside in Medina county until their death. Mrs. Helen G. Hayden died at Medina, Ohio, August 14, 1907, and left surviving her, be- sides her husband, one daughter, Edna Ger- trude, now the wife of A. V. Andrews, an attorney of Norwalk, Ohio. Judge Hayden continues to live at the old home in Medina.

SAMUEL MATHER, member of the widely known firm of Pickands, Mather & Company, miners and dealers of iron and coal, is one of the ablest business men and most prominent capitalists of the Western Reserve; one of those broad figures in the financial, commer- cial and industrial world, the variety and ex- tent of whose interests are a constant cause of wonder in the minds of the untrained and uninitiated. It may be added that even the associates of Mr. Mather often wonder at the apparent ease with which he manages the many and great enterprises with which he is identified, both keeping them stable and in- variably giving them a forward impetus.

A native of Cleveland, Samuel Mather was born on the 13th of July, 1851, and is a son of Samuel Livingston and Georgiana Pome- roy (Woolson) Mather. The founder of the American family was Rev. Richard Mather, a native of Lowton, parish of Winwick, Lan- cashire, England, where he was born in 1596. Himself of an ancient family of gentlemen, he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 16:8, and in the following year was ordained as a minister of the gospel at Toxteth Park, Liver- pool, and Prescott, Lancashire. Upon his sus- pension from the Established church for non- conformity, he emigrated to Massachusetts,

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in 1635 locating at Dorchester (now a part of Boston), where he preached until his deatlı in 1669. He was of that famous family of divines who did so much to make Boston the religious and intellectual center of New Eng- land, the historic Increase Mather (brother of Timothy) being born in Dorchester three years after the coming of Richard, and com- mencing to come into his greatest fame about the time of the latter's death. Rev. Richard Mather married, in September, 1624, Cather- ine Holt, daughter of Edmund Holt, of Bury Lancashire. The line of descent to Samuel Mather is through Timothy ( 1628-1684) and Richard ( 1653-1688), of Dorchester, Massa- chusetts : Samuel ( 1684-1725), Richard 1712- -- ), Samuel (1745 --- ), of Lyme, and Samuel (1771-1854), of Middleton, Connecti- cut ; and Samuel Livingston Mather ( 1817- 1890), of Cleveland, Ohio. Samuel L. Mather, the father, was one of the most public-spirited and prominent citizens of that city, being presi- dent of the Cleveland Iron Mining Company, Iron Cliffs Company and the Mercantile Na- tional Bank, and a director of the American Sheet and Boiler Plate Company, the Ameri- can Rolling Mill and other like institutions. He was long a leading Episcopalian of the city, serving for many years as senior warden, treasurer and vestryman of Trinity parish. In politics, he was a Republican. On September 24, 1850, Samuel L. Mather married Miss Georgiana Pomeroy Woolson, granddaughter of James Fenimore Cooper, the famous novel- ist of early years, and sister of the later writer, Constance Fenimore Woolson. Mrs. Geor- giana Mather died November 2. 1853. and on June 11, 1856, Mr. Mather married Miss Eliz- abeth L. Gwin, the surviving widow. The father died in October. 1890.

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History of the Western Reserve, Vol. II, Part 1

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 886

Author: Upton, Harriet Taylor; Cutler, Harry Gardner, 1856-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago ; New York : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 886