USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 24
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Cleveland. This association is an organiza- tion of nearly all the independent refiners of petroleum east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. These companies, numbering fifty or more, have their larger and mutual interests all concentrated in The National Petroleum Association, which is for that reason an organization of great power and influence in the oil industry.
Mr. Chamberlin is a native of Cuyahoga County and represents some very old families in this section. He was born at Warrensville October 8, 1854, the only child of Charles D. and Rosetta H. (Marks) Chamberlin. His grandfather Chamberlin was a Connecticut Yankee and came from Wethersfield, Connec- ticut, in 1828 and was a pioneer settler in Bedford Township of Cuyahoga County. He was a farmer there, and subsequently moved to Warresville. Charles D. Chamberlin, Sr., was a native of Bedford Township, while his wife was born in Newburg Township of this county, where they were married. In 1856 Grandfather Chamberlin and Charles D. with wife and child, started westward in a covered wagon of the type of the old prairie schooner and located in the vicinity of Des Moines, Iowa. It was a journey which ended tragically for the family, since both the grand- father and the father died there in the same year. The widowed mother then returned with her only child, Charles D. Chamberlin, and lived with her father, Nehemiah Marks in Newbury Township until her marriage in 1859 to Addison Halladay. She then removed to Clinton in Lenawee County, Michigan, where her death occurred in 1904, at the age of seventy-four. Her father, Nehemialı Marks, was also an early settler in Cuyahoga County, coming from Wethersfield, Connecti- cut, and locating in Newburg Township in 1826. He spent his life on the farm which he had first settled. Mr. Chamberlin's father was only twenty-six years of age when he died in Iowa. Mr. Chamberlin has three half- brothers: Cebert M., Oscar H. and Herman H. Halladay, all of whom are farmers. Her- man is president of the State Livestock Sani- tary Commission of Michigan.
Until he was about seventeen years of age Charles D. Chamberlin lived with his mother in Clinton, Michigan. He attended the high school there, and on leaving home he began teaching at his birthplace in Warrensville, Ohio. He taught the district school long known as the "Old Bee-hive." He continued
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teaching in this county in different schools at Newburg, Solon, Bedford and Warrens- ville altogether for ten years.
In 1880 Mr. Chamberlin hired out to a schoolbook publishing house of New York under Alexander Forbes, formerly superin- tendent of the Cleveland Normal. He worked under Mr. Forbes three years, with Cleveland as his headquarters, and traveled all over the state introducing schoolbooks.
Few successful men have had a larger range of experience than Mr. Chamberlin. After leaving the schoolbook firm he was in the grocery business at Bedford four years and from that went into the oil industry under the partnership name of the Buckeye Oil Com- pany, with offices in Cleveland. In 1887 he became connected with the Eagle Refining Company of Lima, but with offices in Cleve- land, and was president of that company until 1890, when he sold his interests. The following three years were spent with the Peerless Refining Company at Findlay. Then in 1893 he became a chair manufacturer at Ravenna, Ohio, and was in active charge of the industry in that city until 1901. On re- suming his relations with the oil industry he was for a time with the Globe Oil Company of Cleveland, but retired in 1905. While en- gaged in active business affairs Mr. Chamber- lin was also preparing for the bar by private study and was admitted in 1906 and has since been licensed to practice before the State Supreme Court and the Federal District and United States Supreme courts and other Fed- eral tribunals. In 1905 he took his present position as general counsel to The National Petroleum Association and has given his best time and energies to handling the many im- portant interests of this organization. He also handles a private practice, chiefly cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal courts.
Mr. Chamberlin is a republican in politics. He is a charter member of Heights Lodge No. 633, Free and Accepted Masons, also a char- ter member of the Royal Arch Chapter and is a charter member of Woodward Council, Royal and Select Masters. He is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Bar Association. His favorite di- version is fishing. Every year he spends a couple of months at his summer cottage on Wamplers Lake in Lenawee County, Michi- gan. His home at Cleveland is at 1789 Wil- ton Road in Cleveland Heights.
On October 12, 1873, at the age of nineteen,
Mr. Chamberlin married at Bedford, Ohio, Es- tella V. Tryon, daughter of Daniel and Phila (King) Tryon. Her people were pioneers around Bedford. Her father was born in Connecticut and her mother in Cuyahoga County and after their marriage at Bedford they lived on a farm the rest of their years. Mrs. Chamberlin was born and educated in Bedford and since her marriage has sought no interests outside her home and family. They are the parents of three children: William C., the oldest, is a graduate of the Bedford High School, was born in that village, also attended the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland, and is now in the photographic supply business, The Kamera Kraft Shoppe at East One Hundred and Fifth Street and Eu- clid Avenue. Alpha Bertine, who was born in Bedford and finished her education in the Ravenna High School, is the wife of James M. MeCleary of Cleveland. Mr. McCleary is connected with the Lander Engineering Com- pany. He is a graduate of Western Reserve University and for twelve years was county engineer of Cuyahoga County and during that time built nearly all the brick roads in the county outside of Cleveland. Carl D., the youngest child, was born in Ravenna, was edu- cated at Bedford and Cleveland Heights High School and is now a contractor at Cleveland.
Mr. Chamberlin has had many wide and in- teresting associations with men of affairs both in this country and elsewhere. To promote the interests of The Petroleum Association he went abroad in 1913, spending some time in Germany, and while there he was called upon to deliver an address before the Reichstag, his speech being interpreted by a professor of English in a German University.
COL. JAMES W. CONGER, merchant, manu- facturer, real estate man, and one of Ohio's veteran soldiers, has had a long and interest- ing life and is identified with Cleveland by many prominent associations.
His birth occurred in Washington County, Pennsylvania, August 6, 1845. His parents were William Henry Harrison and Martha (Auld) Conger, the latter dying when Colonel Conger was thirteen months old and the for- mer when the son was six years of age. His paternal ancestors came out of Northumber- land, England, and have lived in America up- wards of three centuries. The old home was at Morristown, New Jersey. Colonel Conger's grandfather moved from there to Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1796. William
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Henry Harrison Conger was also a native of Washington County, and spent his life as a farmer and stock raiser. His wife, Martha Auld, was a native of Pennsylvania. Her father, Archibald Auld, was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch descent, and both he and his wife, Rebecca Carroll, were brought to America as children.
At the age of seven years James W. Conger went to Mount Gilead, Morrow County, Ohio, to make his home with his grandfather Archi- bald Auld, who was then farming in that locality. Here he attended district schools, and between the ages of eleven and sixteen assisted his aged grandfather on the farm.
In September, 1861, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted as a member of Company B of the Forty-third Ohio Infantry, and was in con- tinuous service until July, 1865. He veteran- ized and re-enlisted for a second three year term in December, 1863. During the latter part of his service he was quartermaster ser- geant. He was in the armies of the West, went with Sherman to the sea, was at the surrender of General Johnston in North Carolina, and marched with Sherman's great army in the Grand Review at Washington. He was given his honorable discharge at Louisville, Ken- tucky, in July, 1865. Through his entire serv- ice he was never in a hospital or absent from his regiment for a day. He has always taken a keen interest in Grand Army matters, and assisted in preparing a history of Fuller's Ohio Brigade, of which he was a member. The long business association which he has enjoyed with his cousin, David Auld, was practically formed in 1862. At the battle of Corinth David Anld drew a sketch of the battlefield and he and Mr. Conger entered upon a business agreement as a result of which they had the sketch lithographed and sold many copies of it. This drawing was used by General Rosecrans in his book "Battles and Leaders."
When Mr. Conger returned home after the war his grandfather had gone West and he then entered a business college at Columbus and completed the course. In the meantime he had made his home with an unele. In 1867 he and others formed a corporation under the name Columbus Steam Brick Company, and there established the first steam brick plant in the state. They sold this business a year later and Colonel Conger then entered the office of his uncle, an architect and build- ing contractor. In 1870 he formed an active partnership with David Auld and engaged
in general contracting at Columbus. In the fall of that year they took a contract for one of the largest churches at Steubenville, Ohio, moving to that town. They also established a brick plant at Steubenville, and their busi- ness as contractors developed until they were handling slate roofing and jobbing contracts throughout the state.
In 1873 Mr. Conger and Mr. Anld moved to Cleveland and established in this city the largest slate jobbing business in Ohio. In 1885, to supply their raw material, they acquired a quarry in Poultney, Vermont, and afterwards in Northampton County, Pennsyl- vania. The firm of Auld & Conger Company was developed to one of the chief manufac- turers and dealers in roofing, slate, grates, mantels and tiles in the country.
Though more than half a century has elapsed since the Civil war Colonel Conger is still carrying a heavy weight of responsibili- ties and business affairs. He is president and treasurer of the Aulcon Building Company, vice president and treasurer of the Bangor Building Company, vice president of the Greenleaf Realty Company, and president of the Conger-Helper Realty Company, with of- fices in the Garfield Building.
Colonel Conger has given much of his time and means to politics, though never as an office seeker or for the sake of individual honor. He was presidential elector in 1896 and in 1912 was chosen a delegate to the Re- publican National Convention, later was ap- pointed a delegate to the Progressive National Convention and was chairman of the commit- tee who notified Theodore Roosevelt of his nomination. As elector at large he headed the state progressive ticket of that year. Colonel Conger is a trustee of the Pulte Medical Col- lege, a trustee of the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and has membership with the Grand Army of the Republic, the Colonial Club, of which he was one of the organizers; Cleve- land Athletic Club, Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, City Club, Civic League, and is chairman of the Exemption Board of District No. 14 at Cleveland, being the only Civil war veteran in the entire city and county to have that honor. He was also a member of the various Masonic bodies. Fishing is his chief source of recreation, and he is a large, athletic man, splendidly preserved for all the weight of his years, and in character and achievement is one of the front rank of Cleveland's citizens.
In 1869, at Columbus, Ohio. he married Miss Anna M. Higgins. She died at Cleveland
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February 11, 1912, the mother of two sons and a daughter, Mrs. L. J. Braddock, of Chi- cago, wife of the assistant manager of the Insurance Company of North America, the oldest insurance company in the country ; Frank H., an active real estate man of Cleve- land; and Howard, who was lost off a steamer going from Washington, D. C., to New York City on October 11, 1911. On November 18, 1914, Mr. Conger married Miss Maude A. Miller, of Cleveland, Ohio. They went to the Orient on their honeymoon and were in a shipwreck on the Japanese Sea, April 11, 1910, and were taken off the ship on life boats.
DUDLEY P. ALLEN, M. D. The late Dr. Dudley P. Allen, whose death occurred in New York City January 6, 1915, following a brief illness, was for many years a physician and surgeon of distinction and ability in Cleve- land. Doctor Allen possessed and exercised many qualities of mind and manhood which his community could ill afford to lose. He stood for the finer things of life, and was not only prominent in his profession but a gentle- man of the highest type and a social leader in the best sense of the term. His name and career are especially linked with the history and growth of Lakeside Hospital and the medical department of Western Reserve Uni- versity.
Death came to him before he was sixty-three years of age. He was born at Kinsman, Ohio, March 25, 1852. It was perhaps only natural that he should have made medicine the choice of his profession, since his father, Dr. Dudley Allen, Sr., and also his grandfather, Dr. Peter Allen, were physicians. When the late Doctor Allen was twelve years of age his parents re- moved to Oberlin, where he spent his early life. He graduated A. B. from Oberlin Col- lege in 1875, and received the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution in 1883. His medical studies were pursued in Harvard Medical School, where he graduated in 1879. Subsequently he did four years of post-grad- uate work in Europe, attending the famous universities at Freiburg, Berlin, Vienna, Leip- sic and London.
After his return from abroad Doctor Allen located in Cleveland, and almost from the first his services were identified with the educa- tional side of medicine. He became connected with the Western Reserve Medical College in 1884, and was lecturer on surgery until 1890. In 1893 he became professor of the theory and practice of surgery and clinical surgery in
the Medical College, a chair he filled with credit untild 1910. In that time almost an entire generation of young physicians had passed before him in the class room and had gone ont better prepared for effectual service because of his instruction and kindly counsel. In 1910 and 1911 Doctor Allen was professor emeritus of surgery in the Western Reserve Medical College, and in 1911 became senior professor of surgery.
His work was especially appreciated as visit- ing surgeon at Lakeside Hospital, and it was a matter of general regret among his associates when he resigned that position four years before his death. On resigning Doctor Allen presented his large and well selected medical library to the Cleveland Medical Library As- sociation. After resigning his position as visit- ing surgeon at the hospital and his professor- ship in the Medical School in 1911 he prac- tically retired and about three years before his death went to live in New York City, though he still retained his home on Mayfield Road, Southeast, in Cleveland. The simple services that marked the funeral rites were held in that home, and he was laid to rest in Lakeview Cemetery.
The members of the medical profession knew Doctor Allen as the author of several con- spicuous works on subjects relating to sur- gery. Among the high professional honors he enjoyed was that of president of the Ameri- can Surgical Association in 1906-7, following three years' service as secretary of that asso- ciation. His active interest in Oberlin College did not cease with his graduation, and he was a trustee of the college from 1898 until the time of his death, and in 1908 that institution conferred upon him the honorary degree LL. D. He was also a trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Arts and the Western Reserve His- torical Society, was an elder of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, and had membership in the Union Club, the University Club, the Rowfant Club, the Mayfield Club and the Country Club, all of Cleveland.
On August 4, 1892, Doctor Allen married Miss Elisabeth S. Severance, daughter of the late L. H. Severance, a prominent Cleveland man elsewhere referred to in these pages.
WARREN JAMES BRODIE, a resident of Cleve- land nearly thirty years, has enjoyed many of those fine distinctions of business life which are associated with perfect integrity of char- acter, singular fidelity to duty and the quiet efficiency of performance which look not so
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much to the conspicuous rewards of success as to definite results year in and year out.
Mr. Brodie was born in Rochester, New York, April 27, 1863, and was liberally edu- cated in the State Normal School at Geneseo, New York, and in Rutgers College, from which he received the bachelor of science degree. Mr. Brodie became a clerk with The Stand- ard Oil Company in 1889, but his chief serv- ice has been in positions of confidential ca- pacity. He was private secretary to L. H. Severance until his death, and is now secre- tary for his son, John L. Severance, his daughter, Mrs. Dudley P. Allen, and for Charles F. Brush of Cleveland.
In the meantime Mr. Brodie has also ac- quired individual relations of importance with Cleveland business affairs. He is a director, secretary and treasurer of The Cleveland Ar- cade Company, of The Arcade Service Com- pany, and is a director of The Linde Air Products Company and The Colonial Salt Company. Mr. Brodie is a republican, is a member of the Zeta Psi Greek college fra- ternity, holds affiliations with Geneseo Lodge No. 214, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Geneseo, New York, and is a member of the Union Club, University Club, Cleveland Yacht Club, Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, and the Garfield-Perry Stamp Club, all of Cleveland. Mr. Brodie is unmarried. He is an active member of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cleveland.
Many of the enviable qualities that have dis- tinguished his life in Cleveland are a matter of inheritance from his father, the late Wil- liam A. Brodie, who at the time of his death on May 10, 1917, was accorded the merited distinction of being the foremost citizen of Geneseo, New York, where most of his life was spent. Warren James Brodie was the only child of William A. Brodie by his mar- riage to Miss Laura Diver. The mother died in 1885.
The late William A. Brodie was born at Kilbarchan, Scotland, August 9, 1841, a son of William and Mary (Wilson) Brodie, and was past seventy-five years of age at the time of his death. On July 5, 1843, his parents came to this country, locating at Rochester, where his father followed the trade of car- penter. William A., the oldest of five children, attended the public schools of Rochester and at the age of fourteen became an errand boy in a dry goods store. He rose to the position of cashier and bookkeeper with this firm, and in May, 1863, accepted a position in the office
of Gen. James S. Wadsworth at Geneseo. Mr. Brodie was connected with General Wads- worth and with the executors of his estate for about ten years, and after that occupied a similar position with the William W. Wads- worth estate for about ten years. He was then general agent for William A. and his brother Herbert Wadsworth in the management of their large estate and was also general agent for several of the younger generation of the Wadsworth family. It was in such positions that his best service in a business way was performed. He did his work with infinite care and precision, reflecting credit upon those who entrusted him with their affairs. Besides the numerous positions of trust which he filled, in- cluding some of a public character, he was president of The Geneseo Gas Light Company for twenty-three years and in 1898 became director and in 1915 vice president of The Genesee Valley National Bank.
It is said that no citizen of Geneseo held so many positions involving heavy responsi- bilities and without remuneration as the late William A. Brodie. He was secretary- treasurer of the Wadsworth Library, was sec- retary of the Chapel Hill Association and member of the executive board of the William Pryor Letchworth Memorial Association. Wil- liam A. Brodie was one of the men responsible for the establishment at Geneseo of the State Normal School, and it is said that his relation- ship meant much more than that of a business man. He came into close personal touch with the student body, almost as much so as the members of the faculty of instruction. He was appointed a member of the local board of trustees in 1887, served as its secretary, and for several years as president.
He cast his first presidential vote for Lin- coln in 1864 and was always a stanch repub- lican. He was clerk of the village of Geneseo, and served as county treasurer of Livingston County five consecutive terms, from 1878 to 1893. He was also sewer commissioner of Geneseo.
Another interest was his active membership in the Livingston County Historical Society, with which he was identified almost from its origin, as its president in 1890 and for a long period of years as its secretary-treasurer.
He was one of New York State's most dis- tinguished Masons. In 1863 he became a mem- ber of Geneseo Lodge No. 214, and was its worshipful master eiglit terms. He attended the Grand Lodge as junior warden of his local lodge in 1866, and subsequently filled
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positions as district deputy, grand steward, junior grand warden, senior grand warden, deputy grand master and became grand master in 1884. In this last position he laid the cornerstone of the pedestal of the Barth- oldi Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and in the following year assisted in similar ceremonies at the Washington Monument in Washington, District of Columbia. In 1885 the supreme, honorary, thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite was conferred upon hin ..
Only the evening before his death he con- ducted the prayer meeting of the Presbyterian Church of Geneseo. That church and re- ligious interests in general without doubt rep- resented the acme of his life's efforts. He had been elected senior member of the church in 1867 and filled that position practically fifty years and was clerk of the session forty- nine years. He was a delegate to many church assemblies, including one general assembly at Los Angeles, and was a delegate to the Pan- Presbyterian Alliance at Liverpool in 1904 and at Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1913. He was also superintendent of the Sunday school sev- eral years and at the time of his death was teacher of a class of 100 men.
He married April 16, 1862, Miss Laura A. Diver, who died in 1885, and in 1889 he mar- ried Miss Martha A. Woodbury, of Royalston, Massachusetts, who had been a member of the Normal faculty at Geneseo. The only child of William A. Brodie by either marriage was Warren James Brodie of Cleveland.
In summing up some of the results of this long and active career an old friend and asso- ciate wrote: "He was truly Geneseo's fore- most citizen, and yet he would have been the first to deny it. Always retiring in nature, he made his presence felt by the kindliness of his personality, the uprightness of his char- acter, the wisdom of his advice and the dig- nity of his bearing. Charles Dickens when making his last visit to this country gave to a school of boys in Boston this pithy advice : 'Boys just do all the good you can and don't make any fuss about it.' This advice admir- ably illustrates and illumines the ruling pas- sion of Brother Brodie's many activities. Geneseo can ill afford the loss that it has suf- fered in his death. He has left a place that cannot be filled by any one man. Many hands will have to take up the labors that he has laid down forever. Whether the work is done as well as he did it remains to be seen. His trusts were all carried out with conscientious
care and left in a condition where they could be continued easily by his successor. His was an example for all to follow."
JOHN ATEN ELDEN. It is a versatile mind and energy which would attain so many influ- ential connections as John A. Elden has ac- quired in Cleveland since his admission to the bar three years ago. Mr. Elden has a large practice as an attorney, with offices in the Williamson Building, and is a member of sev- eral business corporations, is influential as a republican leader and well known in the social and fraternal life of the city.
He was born at East Liverpool, Ohio, April 3, 1891. He was the older of the two children of Enoch and Mary (Aten) Elden. In the maternal line he is the eighth successive John Aten. The Aten family came to the United States in 1732 and were French Huguenots. Mary Aten was born at East Liverpool and her family were pioneers in Eastern Ohio and the Atens have occupied and owned the same home in East Liverpool for four generations. She died in 1898. Enoch Elden is also a na- tive of East Liverpool and of English descent. For many years he was a merchant, banker and real estate dealer, but since 1912 has lived retired from active business responsibilities, his home being at East Liverpool. John A. Elden's only sister, Adeline S., was graduated from the East Liverpool High School in 1914 and is now a sophomore in Wooster Univer- sity.
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