A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 79

Author: Avery, Elroy McKendree, 1844-1935; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, New York The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 904

USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 79

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He came to Cleveland from Medina County, Ohio, and was born in that county at Hinckley December 31, 1885. He is of old Holland Dutch stock. His ancestor, Abraham Van Dueser, as the name was then spelled, came from Holland about two centuries ago and settled in the Province of New York. Mr. Van Deusen's parents are Omar O. and Jessie (Conant) Van Deusen, both of whom were born at Hinckley, Ohio, and were married in 1880. Omar Van Deusen was a farmer and teacher until 1893, when he was elected county clerk of courts and moved to Medina. On his retirement from office in 1899 he was admitted to the bar and practiced law successfully in Medina until 1916, when he was elected pro- bate judge, the office he now fills. Mr. F. F. Van Deusen has one sister, Mrs. C. P. Orth, wife of a west side dentist in Cleveland.

Francis F. Van Deusen graduated from the Medina High School in 1906 and was presi- dent of his class at the time of graduation. He then came to Cleveland as a student of Adel- bert College. Besides his office as treasurer of the Garfield Bank he is treasurer and di- rector of the Fidelity Mortgage & Guarantee Company and treasurer and director of the Glenville Oil & Gas Company. While he was in Medina High School he was captain of the Medina Cadets in 1905-06, a company made up of high school students. Mr. Van Deusen is a republican, and in Masonry is affiliated with Glenville Lodge, Free and Accepted Ma- sons ; Glenville Chapter, Royal Arch Masons ; Cleveland Council, Royal and Select Masons ; Coeur de Lion Commandery, Knights Temp- lar; Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and Glenville Chapter of the Eastern Star. He is a member of the City Club, the Shrine Club, the East Shore Colonial Club, the Her- mit Club, and in religion is a Methodist.

October 10, 1910, at Cleveland, he married Blanche Charlotte Base, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank C. Base. Her father held several government and city positions and until re- cently was active in republican politics in Cleveland. Mrs. Van Deusen was born and has always lived in Cleveland. They have two children : Helen Louise, born March 30, 1913; and Clark Bedell, born May 22, 1916.

JOHN F. CORLETT is senior partner of J. F. Corlett & Company in the Rockefeller Build- ing. This is a business which has grown and developed under Mr. Corlett's active manage- ment during the last twenty-five years, and has become one of the chief agencies in Ohio for the distribution of iron and steel products, including the output of many prominent mills and factories. The firm are district agents over the State of Ohio for such mills as the Lukens Steel Company, Monongahela Tube Company, the Champion Rivet Company, Franklin Steel Works, the Eastern Steel Com- pany and Alan Wood Iron & Steel Company.

Mr. Corlett is preeminently a business man, and family and business represent the two big interests of his life. However, he was born on a farm at Concord, Lake County, Ohio, May 25, 1861, son of Robert and Christiana (Caine) Corlett. His father was born January 24, 1826, on the Isle of Man and was brought to this country by his parents before he was one year old. The family settled in Lake County on land which was the farm home of Robert Corlett practically all his life, and he attained the remarkable age of ninety years. He kept up the work of the farm until 1899, and in the following year he and his wife retired and moved to Pinesville, where he died April 21, 1916. For a number of years one of his active interests was membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He and his wife were both active workers in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Until he retired he always lived on the same old farm in Lake County. His wife, Christiana Caine, was born at Warrensville, Cuyahoga County, and her parents were both natives of the Isle of Man. One of her broth- ers was born on the Isle of Man and being a youth when his parents came to America he remained in the old country and died there when past seventy. He never visited the United States and his sister never went back to the Isle of Man, so that they never saw each other. Mrs. Christiana Corlett died at Paines- ville in March, 1908, at the age of seventy- seven. She was the mother of two sons and two

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daughters, all living: Anna, who has never married and lives in Painesville; John F .; Mrs. C. B. Merrell, of East Cleveland; and George W., of Oklahoma City. All were born on the old farm in Lake County, were educated there and in the grammar and high schools of Painesville, while Anna was a student for one year in Mount Union College.

John F. Corlett worked on the home farm until he was twenty years of age, and his last two winters before leaving home were spent as a teacher in the district schools. He acquired considerable knowledge of farming but it did not form in him a permanent taste, and he has never had a desire to become a farmer. In 1881 he came to Cleveland and for three years was clerk in the house of Davis & Hunt on Ontario Street. This old firm is still in existence. From them Mr. Corlett went with Lockwood & Taylor, wholesale hardware mer- chants, and was with the firm from 1884 to 1890. During the last four years he was trav- eling representative on the road. He then re- signed to go into business for himself as J. F. Corlett, establishing an iron and steel sales agency in the Perry Payne Building. To that business he has given the best efforts of all his subsequent years. In 1903 the partnership of J. F. Corlett & Company was established with Mr. J. F. Cockburn as junior partner. On August 1, 1905, the firm moved to the Rockefeller Building, when that office struc- ture was first opened.

Mr. Corlett is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, City Club, Civic League, Cleveland Automobile Club, and Cleveland Builders' Exchange, and attends and is a supporter of the Euclid Avenue Pres- byterian Church. Outside of business home gives him the greatest pleasure and he is a member of no lodges nor other social organiza- tions. He is fond of motoring, and he and his family reside in one of the beautiful su- burban districts around Cleveland, at 13123 Lake Shore Boulevard, Brathenal. The Cor- lett home is ideally situated in the midst of an acre and a half of ground, directly on the shore of Lake Erie.

May 25, 1891, his birthday, Mr. Corlett mar- ried at Cleveland Miss Minnie E. Ruedy. Mrs. Corlett was horn and educated in Cleveland, a daughter of J. J. and Verina Ruedy. Her father was a member of the firm Benediet & Ruedy, one of the pioneer fur houses of Cleve- land. Her father died at Cleveland in 1895 and her mother in 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Ruedy were Swiss people, born in Switzerland, and

came to Cleveland in early life. Mr. and Mrs. Corlett have one daughter, Alice Gertnide, who was born in Cleveland and is a graduate of the Hatheway-Brown School and spent one year in school in Switzerland.

JOHN F. JASIENSKI is one of Cleveland's prominent young architects, a man of splendid qualifications and wide experience, not only in architecture but in general engineering. He has already done much substantial work, and is looked upon as one of the coming men of the profession.

Mr. Jasienski was born in Cleveland Novem- ber 12, 1885, a son of Frank and Frances Jasienski. His father came to this city in 1872, worked at the cooper's trade and then established a grocery store at 6512 Forman Avenue. He continued a merchant until 1914. when he sold his business and has since lived retired. He married after coming to Cleve- land Frances Kopezynski, and they had seven children.

John F. Jasienski attended St. Stanislans Parochial School and later the public school until 1901. Partly through the encourage- ment and help of his parents and also by his own hard work he acquired a liberal educa- tion. In 1903 he graduated from the Cen- tral Institute and in 1907 completed the course and graduated from the Case School of Ap- plied Science with the degree Civil Engineer.

On leaving college Mr. Jasienski took his first work in Detroit, where for a year he had charge of the survey work for the Great Lakes Engineering Company. Returning to Cleve- land, he was superintendent of construction with the Kellogg Construction Company six months, four months as a fitter helper on con- struction with the Brown Hoist Company. then for two years did designing for steel and concrete bridges and shops with the Lake Shore Railroad. Following that he was for two years with the Dyer Engineering Company, erectors of beet sugar plants, as designer of mill build- ings. Another addition to his experience was the work he did in the county engineer's of- fice. and he had charge of the designing of the Brooklyn-Brighton Bridge. He spent two years in this public work and since then has heen practicing architecture independently with offices in the Rose Building.

Some of the more important works which he has designed and supervised are the Cedar Theater. costing $30.000: St. Stanislaus Nuns' Home, $60.000: three-story apartment at the corner of One Hundredth Street and Euclid

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Avenue, $36,000; auditorium and store build- ing of the Alliance of Poles Club, corner of Broadway and Forman streets, $8,000; Salis- bury Ball Bearing Plant at Ninety-third and Sandusky streets, $30,000; Pavelka Sausage Factory at East Thirty-seventh and Broadway, $18,000, besides a number of churches, apartments and residences.

Mr. Jasienski is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Tau Beta Pi college fraternity, the Knights of Columbus, the Harmonia Singing Society, the Polish Pro- fessional Men's Club. He is a member of the Catholic Church and is independent in his political activities. At Detroit in September, 1907, he married Miss Irene Dzieweczynski. They have six children, Florine, Alvian, Ger- ard, Vivian, Gerome and John F., Jr., the oldest ten and the youngest one year old. The older children are all attending public schools.

CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING, sixth presi- dent of Western Reserve University, has en- joyed a long and distinguished career as a minister, author and educator, and his high- est success has been in the field of college ad- ministration, of which the growth and pros- perity of Western Reserve. University during the last quarter of a century is the best testi- mony.

Of old New England stock, with ancestry going back to the time of the Mayflower, Charles Franklin Thwing was born at New Sharon, Maine, November 9, 1853. It was his good fortune that a portion of his boyhood was spent at Farmington, Maine, the home of members of the noted Abbott family, includ- ing Jacob. He entered Phillips Academy, An- dover, from there he went to Harvard Col- lege, where he graduated close to the head of his class in 1876, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The three following years were spent in the Andover Theological Seminary, where he was recognized as one of the ablest students of the time. He graduated from the Theological Seminary in 1879 and later in 1889 received the degree S. T. D. from the Chicago Theological Seminary, and has been honored with the degree LL. D. by Marietta College, Illinois College, Washington and Jefferson College. Kenyon College, and Litt. D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

While in the Theological Seminary Mr. Thwing's abilities as a writer were first de- veloped. He was soon a contributor to leading periodicals. Those who have heard Dr. Thwing speak or have read his writings will

thoroughly approve the opinion expressed by Dr. J. G. Holland, while editor of Scribner's Monthly, who in a letter to the young contrib- utor said that Mr. Thwing could say more in fewer words than any other man he knew of.

For eleven years after graduating from the seminary Dr. Thwing was busy with pastoral duties, being in charge of the North Avenue Congregational Church at Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, until 1886, and the Plymouth Church at Minneapolis until 1890. In 1890 he accepted the call to the presidency of the Western Reserve University and affiliated in- stitutions, and to these colleges and schools he has given the best of his organizing ability and the ripe fruits of his scholarship for over a quarter of a century. He has made West- ern Reserve in fact as well as in name a uni- versity, has built up its various professional departments and schools, has increased its endowments, has brought about many notable additions to the buildings and facilities and has increased the faculty of instruction to more than three hundred members.

To say that Dr. Thwing is one of America's foremost leaders in thought as well as in edu- cational affairs is only stating a plain truth and an obvious one. His broad culture, his far-sighted and liberal views, his tireless en- ergy and decided character, have brought him many of the best honors paid to a leader in scholarship and affairs.

He is a Phi Beta Kappa, a member of the University Club of Cleveland and an honorary member of the Union Club. He has served as secretary of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for several years, is president of the Intercollegiate Peace As- sociation, and has been associate editor of the Bibliotheca Sacra since 1884. He has spoken from many lecture platforms, and for years has been a contributor to magazines-Ameri- can and English-especially on educational topics. He is doubtless most widely known through his work as an author.

Doctor Thwing is author of the following: "American Colleges" (New York, 1878) ; "The Reading of Books," 1883; "The Fam- ily; a Historical Sketch and Sociological Study,"in which he collaborated with his wife, 1886 (2d edition, 1913) ; "The Working Church," 1888; "Within College Walls," 1893; "The College Woman," 1894; "The American College in American Life;" "The Best Life :" "College Administration," 1900; "The Youth's Dream of Life"; "God in His World;" "If I Were a College Student,"

Chumbo F. Thing

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1902; "The Choice of a College," 1901; "A Liberal Education and a Liberal Faith," 1903; "College Training and the Business Man;" "A History of Higher Education in America," 1906; "Education in the Far East," 1909; "History of Education in the United States Since the Civil War," 1910; "Universities of the World," 1911; "Letters from a Father to His Son Entering College," 1912; "Letters from a Father to His Daugh- ter Entering College," 1913; "The Co-ordi- nate System in Higher Education," 1913; "The American College," 1914; "Education According to Some Modern Masters," 1916; also various annual reports of Western Re- serve University and Adelbert College, and co-editor of the Chapel and Hymn Book.

September 18, 1879, soon after his gradna- tion from Andover Theological Seminary. Doctor Thwing married Carrie F. Butler. She died April 24, 1898. December 22, 1906, he married Mary Gardiner Dunning.

EPHRAIM BROWN. The life of Ephraim Brown is of interest to Cleveland people for several reasons. He was never a resident of the city, though he was one of the pioneer founders and owners of the great Ohio West- ern Reserve, and during the first half century of its development he was not only a big factor in its material life and business affairs, but exemplified in a remarkable degree that idealism, love of liberty, and harmony between the conscience and will which have been among the finest products and contributions of North- ern Ohio to the American nation. His sketch should also be read as a means of better in- terpreting the forces and character possessed and exemplified by his son, the late Fayette Brown, one of Cleveland's most distinguished citizens.

Ephraim Brown was born at Westmoreland, New Hampshire, October 27, 1775. He was the oldest of the ten children of Ephraim and Hannah (Howe) Brown. In many ways the family was typieal of New England middle class people of the eighteenth century. His father had a small farm and by occasional out- side labor at some mechanical pursuits was able to afford comfortable support to his fam- ily. lIe was a man of great sturdiness of character, but one virtue he pushed to exeess and by going security for a friend lost all his property. After that he never regained his economie position. Ephraim Brown's mother was a woman of deep religious feel- ing, and she imparted it to her son.

When the financial calamity came Ephraim Brown, as the oldest son, became the chief support of the family. While necessity forced upon him responsibilities beyond his years, it served to develop in him an indomitable per- severance and a selt reliance which were ever afterwards among his chief characteristics. But hard labor did not prevent him from seeking and obtaining access to much of the best culture of his day. Ile read good books, though books and libraries were not widely dis- tributed when he was a young man, and he constantly sought the society of people whose worth rested upon character rather than arti- fieial standards. His developing character is illustrated by many of his early letters which have been preserved. As was the custom of the time sueh correspondence was largely con- cerned with moral, religious and politieal dis- enssions. The letters are important because they show that Ephraim Brown had a certain fearlessness and sineerity of thought and a tendency to reject the conventional prejudiees unless they were ratified by his own thinking. He also showed a readiness to be convinced of error in the face of superior argument.

Very early in life he conceived a bitter hatred of the system of slavery, and that was one of the actuating principles of his subse- quent earcer. In a letter he wrote in 1807 to a Southern relative who had tried to per- suade young Brown to come South and im- prove the superior facilities there for making money, Mr. Brown questioned the method by which wealth might be acquired so rapidly by "eommerce in human flesh" and added, "I have been taught from my cradle to de- spise słavery, and will never forget to teach my children if any I should have the same lesson." Other sentiments in that letter thirty years later were expounded and used in the publie utteranees of William Lloyd Garrison and other distinguished abolitionists. Ephraim Brown possessed his mother's earnestness of inward thought and feeling, and whatever religious disposition he had was made a deep part of him rather than a conventional robe of thought and emotion. He was quiek and ready at all times to denounee evil vigorously, and some of his more conservative friends felt that he was too radical on this score. Dne largely to his love of freedom and his habits of independent thought, he never beeame closely associated with societies of any kind.

For a number of years he applied himself industriously to the task of earning a living for himself and those dependent upon him, and in

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1803 he engaged in merchandising in Con- necticut with Thomas K. Green of Putney, Vermont. Mr. Green had charge of the busi- ness at Putney, while young Brown managed the branch store at Westmoreland. He re- mained a merchant there until he moved ont to Ohio in 1815. While in Connecticut he represented his town in the Legislature sev- eral times. Soon after entering upon his in- dividual business career, on November 9, 1806, he married Miss Mary Huntington. She was the oldest daughter of Gurdon and Temper- ance (Williams) Huntington, and was born at Windham, Connecticut, August 29, 1787. While still a child her father and mother moved to Walpole, New Hampshire. Mrs. Ephraim Brown came from a talented family, and she herself possessed many qualities of both heart and intellect. Before her marriage she tanghit school. Her ancestors had come from England in 1639 and settled in Con- nectient, and one of the family was Governor Samuel Huntington of Ohio.

In 1814 Ephraim Brown formed a partner- ship with his uncle, Thomas Howe. From Peter C. Brooks of Boston they bought town- ship 7, range 4, in the Western Reserve of Ohio. This township has since taken the name of Bloomfield. In 1815 Mr. Brown brought his family out to the new possession. The journey required six weeks, and they arrived at the new home on July 16th. Some prepara- tions had already been made for their com- fort and support, but then and for years after- ward they were face to face with the hardships and privations of pioneering on the edge of the western wilderness. Mr. Brown later as- sumed the burden of the debt consequent upon the partnership, and in a few years had fully discharged it. In 1819 the Ashtabula & Trum- bull Turnpike Company was formed and char- tered under the laws of Ohio. Ephraim Brown took an active part in pushing this enterprise, in spite of the tremendous obstacles in its way, and as much as any other man credit was due him for its successful completion. For many years he exercised a ceaseless care for the interests of the company and the preserva- tion of the road. Through his influence a post- office was established at Bloomfield. Within seven years after the first settlement in Bloom- field daily four-horse mail coaches passed through the place on the way to the lake or south to the Ohio River. In consequence land advanced in value, and the better class of set- tlers acquired many of the comforts and im-

provements to which they had been accustomed in the older states.

After coming to Ohio Ephraim Brown served several terms in the General Assembly. In his younger days he was a Jeffersonian re- publican, and from first to last was an avowed abolitionist. He believed implicitly in the complete separation of the church and state, and he therefore strenuously opposed the ef- forts of a prominent religious sect in 1822 to dominate politics. He was long known as Colonel Brown. He had served as captain of a company of militia in New Hampshire, and afterwards was made governor's aide with the rank of colonel. Ephraim Brown in his social relations was distinguished for his kind- ness, benevolence and hospitality, and in his business transactions by prudence, prompt- ness and integrity. He was the type of char- acter such as any state or community might prize and might hold up as an example to coming generations.

Ephraim Brown died April 17, 1845, in the seventieth year of his life. His wife sur- vived until Jannary 26, 1862. Their nine chil- dren, all now deceased, were: Alexander ; George W .; Mary, who became the wife of Col. Joseph K. Wing; Charles; Elizabeth ; James Monroe; Marvin Huntington ; Fayette ; Anne Frances.

FAYETTE BROWN. One of the vital ele- ments entering into the making of Cleve- land as a city was the establishment many years ago of the iron industry at this point where land and water meet and combine to make Cleveland a great transportation and industrial center. It is important to remem- ber that the iron industry would not have been created without the energies, the fore- sight and the patient wisdom of men. Of the men chiefly responsible for this factor of Cleveland's growth perhaps the greatest was Fayette Brown. Not that his life did not mean more than its results in the upbuilding of Cleveland's iron interests. He was a great business man from whatever point of view considered, and he was not less great as a citizen, whose judgment was always true, whose public spirit was unlimited, and who, when all things are considered, left as his best monument the City of Cleveland itself, which in the final analysis is only an expres- sion of the energies and spirit of a notable group of citizens, among whom Fayette Brown was by no means the least.

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He was born in Trumbull County, Ohio, December 17, 1823, and at the end of a long and useful life died at his home in Cleve- land January 20, 1910. He was the eighth in a family of nine children. His parents were Ephraim and Mary (Iluntington ) Brown. Ephraim Brown was also a eonspien- ous character in his generation, and his name is the subject of a biography found on other pages of this publication.

Fayette Brown during his early youth had every incentive to develop his natural talents and abilities, and his father, realizing the value of an education, gave his children all the opportunities he could afford. Fayette Brown therefore attended the sehools of Jef- ferson and Gambier, Ohio, but at the age of eighteen began an apprenticeship at business life as elerk in the wholesale dry goods estab- lishment of his eldest brother at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was with that establishment as an employe until 1845, when the senior part- ner having retired he was admitted to the firm and for six years was one of its aetive managers.

Fayette Brown became a resident of Cleve- land in 1851. Some months previously he had formed a partnership with the Hon. George Mygatt in the banking business. The firm of Mygatt & Brown, Bankers, is one best remem- bered in the history of banking in Cleveland. Mr. Mygatt retired in 1857 and Mr. Brown continued as a banker under his individual name until the outbreak of the Civil war. Ile elosed his banking house and accepted an appointment from the president as a pay- master in the United States Army. His per- sonal integrity and his experience as a banker gave him splendid qualifications for the heavy responsibilities of that work, but a year's ill- ness and the demands of his private affairs compelled him to resign.

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A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 79

Author: Avery, Elroy McKendree, 1844-1935; Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Chicago, New York The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 904

Author: Avery, Elroy McKendree, 1844-1935; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, New York The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 904