A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume II, Part 28

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1150

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Mr. FitzGerald's ability as a speaker has made his services much in demand for campaign addresses. He is recognized as one of the prominent republicans of Cleveland and has been a delegate to several county and state conventions. He was one of the two county examiners whose duty it is to examine all con- tracts where the county is interested, having been appointed to this position by the court of common pleas to which his report was made. Although fre- quently solicited to become a candidate for office, he has always refused, as his ambition lies in other channels. However, he is untiring in his efforts to promote the interest and success of his party and was chairman of the Cuyahoga county republican league in 1907. He is the president of the Tippecanoe Club, a republican organization, was chairman of the speakers' committee at the re- publican picnic held in Cleveland in August, 1908, and was elected a member of the republican state central committee from the twenty-first congressional dis- trict. He belongs to the Obiter, a club of young lawyers, and he is also con- nected with the Masonic fraternity, the Phi Sigma Kappa, a Greek letter fra- ternity, and with the Presbyterian church. Although a young man, whose life record does not yet cover three decades, he is widely and popularly known in Cleveland, figuring prominently in public affairs as well as in the profession which he has chosen as his life work.

ELROY McKENDREE AVERY.

The labors of Dr. Elroy McKendree Avery have been a decided stimulus to the world's progress. He has the ability of judging any situation in its fullest breadth, of realizing its connecting interests, and in educational lines, especially, ne has accomplished a special work that has been of the greatest benefit to his fellowmen. For nearly forty years he has been recognized as one of the promi- nent educators of Cleveland and during much of this period as one of the expo- nents of physical science in the United States. He is widely known in this con- nection as a teacher, lecturer and author, and his reputation has been won through the able discharge of duties connected with positions which demanded strong powers of discrimination. As an important factor in bringing about those wholesome reforms which are springing up in the political life of the nation, Dr. Avery has also been prominent. He has exercised his official prerogatives in a marked degree for the furtherance of charities and moral reforms through pub- lic legislation.

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Dr. Avery inherits many of his sterling qualities from an honorable and honored ancestry, but their development has been due to his own determination, his interest and participation in those vital affairs which go to make up existence for the race at the present day. The founder of the American branch of the family was Christopher Avery, who with his only son came from England and landed at 'Salem, Massachusetts, the records giving this act about 1640. They also indicate that he was a selectman of Gloucester for eight years, that he be- came a resident of Boston and later removed to New London, Connecticut, where he was made a freeman in 1669. He died ten years later. His only child, James Avery, the founder of the Groton Averys, married Joanna Greenslade and soon followed the younger Winthrop, his intimate friend, to New London. There he became a rich land owner and in 1656 built the "Hive of the Averys" at Po- quonnock Plain in the town of Groton, where he lived until his death. After giv- ing shelter to eight successive generations of the Groton Averys, the old "Hive" was destroyed by fire in July, 1894. Captain James Avery was both a famous Indian fighter and peacemaker, two characters which were apt to be closely re- lated. At his death, April 18, 1700, he had served for twenty years as townsman, twenty years as a member of the Connecticut general court, several times as peace commissioner and for many years as assistant judge of the county court. He was twice married, his second wife being Mrs. Abigail Holmes. Through John, William, Abraham (an officer of the Revolution) and Amos Walker the line descends to Casper Hugh, the father of Elroy McKendree Avery. Lieuten- ant Abraham Avery married Mercy Packer, of Groton, Connecticut; and about 1794 removed with his family to New York, settling later at Preston, Chenango county, and dying at Earlville, Madison county, in 1843. Amos W. Avery, his third son, was a native of Colerain, Massachusetts, and in 1808 married Nancy Mccutcheon. He resided successively in New York and Michigan and died at LaSalle, Monroe county, Michigan, in 1863. His eldest child, Casper H., was born at Preston, New York, July 25, 1809, settled at Erie, Michigan, in 1833 and on September 26, 1843, married Miss Dorothy Putnam. She died March 1, 1868, and he followed March 5, 1873.

Elroy McKendree Avery, the eldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Casper H. Avery, was born at Erie, Monroe county, Michigan, July 14, 1844. His father soon removed from the farm to the county seat, and there the boy acquired his early education and also his first business experience as a newspaper carrier, bill- poster and distributer. Naturally a student, however, he was adjudged by the local authorities qualified to teach in Frenchtown township when he was only sixteen years of age. When the first company in Monroe county-called the Smith Guards-was raised in response to the call for Union troops, Mr. Avery joined it, but, although it went to the front as Company A, Fourth Michigan Infantry, he was then denied a muster in it on account of his years. On the 14th of July, 1861, however, he rejoined his friends and classmates at Georgetown Heights near Washington city, just on the eve of advance toward Bull Run. The first week of his seventeenth year closed with the first battle of Bull Run, and the youth returned to his home with the First Michigan Regiment after its three months' service. He reenlisted in the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Michigan Regi- ments, but parental authority interfered in his being mustered in. In 1863, how- ever, he actually entered the ranks of Company E, Eleventh Michigan Cavalry, remained with his command through its campaigns under Stoneman, Burbridge, and others and on the battlefield of Saltville, Virginia, was promoted from pri- vate to sergeant major. In addition to performing his military duties, he served as a war correspondent of the Detroit Daily Tribune, this being the beginning of a journalistic career which was continued many years after the war. In August, 1865, he was mustered out of the service at Pulaski, Tennessee.

At once reentering the Monroe (Mich.) high school, the returned soldier prepared for the University of Michigan, which he entered in September, 1867. The four years of his collegiate course were made possible by work as principal

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of the Battle Creek (Mich.) high school for four months and editorial service on the Detroit Tribune. Before being graduated in June, 1871, he accepted the superintendency of the Charlotte (Mich.) schools, but was released from his engagement to assume a like position in the East Cleveland (Ohio) schools, of- fered him in July. In the following month he resigned his editorial chair to take up his school work at East Cleveland. In the following year the village of East Cleveland was annexed to the city of Cleveland, and Mr. Avery became principal of the East high school. In 1878 the East high school and the Central high school were consolidated, and Mr. Avery became principal of the Cleveland Nor- mal School. The next year he retired from the pedagogical but not from the educational field. For two seasons thereafter he delivered popular experimental lectures on the new electric light. In 1881 he began the organization of Brush electric light and power companies in the largest cities of the country. His record of more than two score such companies has not been equaled by any other man in the country.

In the meantime Dr. Avery had come into prominence as an author of high- school text-books on physical science. In 1876 was published his Elementary Physics, which was immediately adopted by the Cleveland high schools; Elements of Natural Philosophy appeared in 1878; Physical Technics, in 1879; Teachers' Handbook of Natural Philosophy, in 1879; Elements of Chemistry, in 1881 ; Teachers' Handbook of Chemistry, in 1882; Complete Chemistry, in 1883; First Principles of Natural Philosophy, in 1884; School Physics, in 1895; Elementary Physics, in 1897; and School Chemistry, in 1904. He is also the author of the following works: Words Correctly Spoken, 1887; Columbus and the Columbia Brigade, 1892; The Town Meeting, 1904. For a quarter of a century he has had in preparation a History of the United States and Its People, to be complete in sixteen volumes-his great life work; seven volumes had been published in 1909.

Dr. Avery is a member of the American Historical Society, a life member of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society and of the American Economic Association ; a life member and trustee of the Western Reserve Historical So- ciety ; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a charter member of the Forest City Post, G. A. R., and the founder and first president of the Western Reserve Society of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion. He is also a charter member of Woodward Lodge, F. & A. M., a Knight Templar and a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of the Zeta Psi, a col- lege fraternity. Upon graduation in 1871 he received the degree of Ph. B., and subsequently those of Ph. M., Ph. D., and the honorary degree of LL.D.

Dr. Avery's public record, already noted, included service in the Cleveland city council in 1891-2 and in the Ohio senate in 1893-97. In the former body he represented the East End (sixth) district, which returned him by the largest majority given any candidate in the city. In municipal legislation he was the leader in the gas reduction and other reforms; was the chairman of the commit- tees which investigated the street railroads and the city infirmary ; was the author of the anti-smoke ordinance and was an earnest advocate for the founding of a city farm school for the benefit of vicious youths and abandoned and friendless children. His campaign for the state senate-for which he was an unwilling nominee-was magnificently conducted and, in point of majority, put him at the head of the legislative ticket. His senatorial record marked him as an able legis- lator, whose mind was chiefly fixed on the advancement of the higher interests of the commonwealthi. As second president of the Ohio Conference on Charities and Corrections he first came into state prominence in this noble field of action, to which he has never ceased to give his best efforts. On the incorporation of the Children's Fresh Air Camp in 1895, he was chosen president, a position to which he was elected thirteen successive terms. Upon his refusal to serve another term, he was chosen honorary president. Dr. Avery found the camp with prop- erty valued at about three hundred dollars; he left it with property valued at

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about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and rich in the confidence and good will of the people of northern Ohio.

In 1905 Dr. Avery was one of twelve commissioners appointed by the board of education to make a study of every department of the public schools of the city. He was a member of several of the committees of the commission and chairman of the committee on the work and course of study in the common schools. The herculean task of the "Avery committee" was entered upon with enthusiasm. the search was radical and thoroughgoing, the findings were fearless and the results far-reaching and important. Its report was approved by the com- mission and published in pamphlet form by the board of education. It was printed in full in the local daily press and in the leading educational periodicals of the country. One eastern publishing house printed twenty thousand copies for gratuitous distribution, and many of the metropolitan newspapers gave it editorial comment and approval. Dr. Avery found abundant compensation for his six months' work in the minimizing of the "frills and feathers" features of courses of study in the common schools of Cleveland and of many other commu- nities between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

On July 2, 1870, Dr. Avery wedded Miss Catherine Hitchcock Tilden, who had succeeded him in the principalship of the Battle Creek high school. She was his able assistant during his career as a teacher in Cleveland and has been in every way a true companion and helpmate.

ALEXANDER HYND.

On the list of architects who have had to do with this line of work in Cleve- land, making a specialty of marine building, is Alexander Hynd, partner in the firm of Nacey & Hynd, marine architects and consulting engineers. He is one of America's sons only by adoption, for his birth occurred in Dundee, Scotland, on the 4th of July, 1865. His father, James Hynd, who was born in the same locality, was a ship painter and decorator, and he and his father, David Hynd, were in business in Dundee for over sixty years. He was quite successful in his undertakings and was a leading and influential resident of that city. He died in 1901, while his wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Moir and who was also a native of Dundee, passed away in 1903.

Alexander Hynd was educated in the Dundee high school, and also in evening science classes at the Young Men's Christian Association conducted under the Science and Art Department of South Kensington. He afterward attended Dun- dee University, where he received a technical education along engineering lines. He served his apprenticeship in the marine shops of William B. Thompson at Dundee, manufacturer of marine machinery, there learning to design, erect and assemble engines. He next went to sea as an engineer in the Orient Royal Mail line of London for the British and Burmese Steam Navigation Company of Glasgow, spending five years in that way. He rose to the rank of chief engineer and received the certificate and a rank from the Board of Trade as a first-class engineer. During this period he visited all of the ports of Australia, Madras, Colombo, points in south Africa, etc.

Mr. Hynd resigned his position with that company in 1891 in order to come to America, believing that the opportunities of the new world were superior to those furnished in the Orient or in European countries. After a few months he located in Cleveland, becoming a draftsman with the Globe Iron Works Com- pany, with which he remained until 1895, during which period many of the notable vessels in the lake service were constructed by the company, including the steamers Northwest and Northland. During that time he was also engaged on plans for the Woodland Avenue power house, the first electrical equipment of the West Side Railroad. From 1895 until 1897 he was draftsman with the Brown

ALEXANDER HYND

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Hoisting Machinery Company, and in the latter year he entered the employ of the Great Lakes Register as an assisting engineer, so continuing until 1900, when he was inade chief engineer. This company was an association incorporated to inspect and classify all lake vessels. Mr. Hynd continued until 1903, during which time he traveled to every port on the lakes. In the year mentioned he resigned to engage in business for himself, organizing the firm of Nacey & Hynd, taking over the business established by Robert Logan. They have had charge of the construction of some of the largest lake vessels on the lakes, including the steam- ers, William M. Mills, Le-Grand, S. De Graft and William B. Kerr. Mr. Hynd was also in charge of the construction of several of the largest car ferries on the lakes belonging to the Pere Marquette line besides a large number of freight vessels. He also acts as consulting engineer. Since the organization of the firm they have enjoyed a gratifying success, many important contracts being awarded them. Mr. Hynd, aside from his partnership relation, is a director of the Ash- tabula Steamship Company, owning the steamer Normania, and in the line of his profession he has various membership relations, belonging to the Cleveland Engineering Society, the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers of New York.

In 1892 Mr. Hynd was married to Miss Janet Smith, of Dundee, whose father was manager for Charles Parker, Sons & Company, engineers of Dundee. They have four children: Davina Smith, Albert James, Alexander Hubert and Frederick Stuart. The parents are members of the First Congregational church. Mr. Hynd takes his recreation in outdoor sports and boating. He has always been mechanically inclined, and, choosing as a field of labor that line of work for which nature intended him, he has made steady progress, advancing far on the highroad to prosperity.

JOHN ALFRED STARAL, M. D.

Dr. John Alfred Staral, practicing medicine with offices at No. 2087 East Fifty-fifth street and 856-58 Rose building, in Cleveland, is one of the younger representatives of the profession who is making steady progress therein. He was born in Akron, Ohio, September 1I, 1881. His father, Frank J. Staral, manager of the Gardner Printing Company, has been identified with the printing industry in Cleveland during the greater part of the time for forty-five years, having located here in 1865. In 1869 he removed to Akron and was there con- nected with the Daily Beacon until his return to Cleveland in 1887. His wife bore the maiden name of Bertha Wiesenberger. Both were born in Bohemia, Mr. Staral arriving in America in 1865 at the age of eighteen years, while the year of Mrs. Staral's arrival was 1871.

Dr. Staral entered the Cleveland public schools at the usual age and master- ing the branches taught in consecutive grades was promoted from time to time until he completed the Central high-school course by graduation in 1900. He was at that time treasurer of his class and later was elected permanent treasurer. The practice of medicine seemed to him an attractive field, and with the purpose of becoming a representative of the profession he entered the medical department of the Western Reserve University, from which he was graduated with the M. D. degree in 1904. He afterward spent one year at the Lakeside Hospital in private ward service and then went abroad, remaining in Europe for fourteen months, during the greater part of which time he was at Prague, where he pur- sued general lines of post-graduate study, benefiting by the instruction of emi- nent physicians and surgeons of the old world.

Shortly after his return to his native land Dr. Staral, on the Ist of February, 1907, entered upon the private practice of general medicine and surgery, which he has since continued. During 1907 he held the chair of assistant at the Tiber-

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culosis Dispensary of the Western Reserve University, and he is now medical examiner for the Southern States Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Protected Home Circle. He belongs to the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is also known in the Phi Rho Sigma, a college fraternity, in the Knights of Pythias lodge and in different branches of Masonry, with which he has become allied. He is making steady progress in his chosen life work and all that he does is ac- tuated by laudable ambition and conscientious effort.

CLAYTON HUNTER FOOTE.

Clayton Hunter Foote stands as a high type of the American citizen to whom the field of business has offered full scope for his energy and enterprise -his dominant qualities-while in the relations of citizenship his course has ever been a commendable and exemplary one. He recognizes at once the obliga- tions which conditions of society at the present day impose and has never been so engrossed with personal interests that he could not find time or opportunity to aid in movements to conserve the best interests of the city or country at large. His home locality knows him as a man whose influence is ever on the side of progress and improvement, while in commercial circles of the state he has a wide acquaintance as the president and treasurer of the C. H. Foote Lumber Com- pany and as the promoter of many other important business concerns.

Clayton Hunter Foote was born August 2, 1863, near Rochester, Lorain county, Ohio, a son of Walter B. and Jane T. (Tanner) Foote. He is descended in the paternal line from one of the old colonial families of the country, his an- cestors locating on this side the Atlantic when America was still numbered among the possessions of Great Britain. The first of the name was Nathanial Foote, who settled in Massachusetts in 1634, founding a family which in its ramifying branches is now a very numerous one. It was represented by loyal advocates of the cause of liberty in the Revolutionary war. Mrs. Foote, the mother, has a very interesting history on account of her activity as a temperance crusader and is now very prominent in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The father was a cattle buyer who removed to Cleveland in 1865, and Clayton H. Foote, then two years of age, afterward entered the public schools of the city, wherein he continued his studies until he had spent two years as a student in the Central high school. He made his initial step in business circles as an office boy in the Fisher & Wilson Lumber Company, and that he was com- petent, faithful and diligent is indicated in the fact that he remained with that company for ten years, on the expiration of which period he resigned his posi- tion, which at the time was that of manager of the lumber shipping department. In the passing years he had gained comprehensive knowledge of the business, of the methods in vogue in the commercial world and of the particular line of trade in which he was engaged, and with laudable ambition he perfected his arrangements for establishing business on his own account. In 1892 he opened a lumber yard on Seneca street, where he conducted business for six years, after which he went to the Kentucky lumber camps where he remained for a year. He then returned to Cleveland and again started in business under his own name while subsequently the enterprise was incorporated under the style of the C. H. Foote Lumber Company, Mr. Foote becoming its president and treasurer, while his sister, A. Medora Foote, became secretary. The company conducts a whole- sale lumber business, its sales extending throughout the state of Ohio. All kinds of lumber are. handled and the business has reached such proportions that it is now classed with the leading wholesale enterprises of the city. Mr. Foote is a man of resourceful business ability, however, and has not confined his attention to one line, his energy and enterprise proving dominant factors in the successful

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control of other interests. He was one of the organizers and is the president of the Glenville Lumber Company, is the president of the Scranton Road Lumber Company, a director of the Collingwood Lumber Company and treasurer of the Sawmill Company, of Chase City, Virginia, and aside from lumber interests he has become known in financial circles as one of the incorporators and directors of the Cleveland Savings & Loan Company and also as one of the organizers of the Reserve Loan Company, of which he was formerly president.

Mr. Foote is identified with a number of societies which have for their ob- ject the promotion of trade interests. He belongs to the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, to the Builders Exchange, to the Cleveland Credit Men's Associa- tion and to the Cleveland Board of Lumber Dealers, and the position of import- ance to which he has attained in lumber circles of the city and state makes his opinions of weight concerning business conditions as discussed in these various organizations.

In 1889 Mr. Foote was united in marriage to Miss Maude Wentworth, a daughter of Nathanial Wentworth, a merchant of Cleveland. Their children are Florence, Marjory and Mabel. The family residence is in the eastern part of the city and Mr. Foote takes a deep and helpful interest in all that pertains to the welfare and progress of the community in material, intellectual, political and moral lines. He was a member of the Glenville city council, and it was largely through his influence that Glenville took a legal stand for temperance. He is himself a stanch opponent of the liquor traffic and manifests his opinions on this subject in the stalwart allegiance which he gives to the prohibition party. He belongs to the Park Congregational church and his life is actuated by high principles so that he measures up to the standard of honorable manhood.

JOHN INGRAM.

Among Cleveland's citizens from earliest time down to the present there has been none more loyal to the interests of the city or to American institutions than John Ingram, notwithstanding the fact that he was of foreign birth. His native land was England and the date of his nativity, February 23, 1836. He acquired his education there and came to America when seventeen years of age. He was a carpenter by trade and followed that pursuit for a time, but realizing that in the conditions of the city attendant upon its growth there was need for one competent to move buildings and do work of similar character, he turned his attention to that field of labor and thereafter engaged in the moving business, handling both frame and brick buildings, safes, boilers, etc. He had his own teams, employed many men and did an extensive business, devoting his entire life to the work. In this he was quite successful, receiving a liberal pat- ronage, and as the years went by his labors brought him a substantial financial reward.

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A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume II, Part 28

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1150

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1150