USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 80
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It was on his return to Cleveland that Mr. Brown beeame aetively identified with the iron industry. As general agent and manager for the Jackson Iron Company he soon became known as one of the most eapable iron mas- ters of his day. He remained with the Jackson Iron Company until December, 1887. While he possessed an exceptional general knowledge of business, Mr. Brown was not technically familiar with the iron industry when he took up his duties with the Jackson Iron Company. It was in keeping with his nature that he should embark enthusiastically upon this enterprise and should familiarize himself with every detail, practical and tech- Vol. 11-27
nieal, connected with his work. His associates always envied his perseverance and his in- domitable energy and resolution, and it was the impregnable resources of his personal char- acter as much as anything else that accounted for the wonderful success of the Jackson Iron Company and which eventually fortified the iron industry in Cleveland beyond all danger of outside competition. While the operation of the business was exceedingly profitable to all concerned Mr. Brown from the first realized his responsibility to the eity as well as to his stockholders, and the prosperity of the com- pany was also the prosperity of the eom- munity. During the last half century the Middle West has developed no greater iron master than Fayette Brown.
Naturally he became identified with various kindred enterprises and was associated as a director or otherwise with some of Cleveland's best known business organizations. He was president of the Union Steel Screw Company, was chairman of the Stewart Iron Company, Limited, was president of the Brown Hoist- ing Machinery Company, of the National Chemical Company, the G. C. Kuhlman Car Company, and was a member of the firm II. HI. Brown & Company, one of the large iron ore firms of the country. This company rep- resented the Lake Superior Iron Company and the Champion Iron Company, handling the produets of two of the largest iron mines in the Lake Superior region.
Mr. Brown was a member of the Union Club, the Golf and Country Clubs of Cleveland, the Castalia Club, the Winous Point Shoot- ing Club, the Point Moullie Shooting Club, the West Huron Shooting Club, the Huron Moun- tain Shooting and Fishing Club, and the Munising Trout Club. To describe all the in- fluenees and activities of this notable Cleve- land eitizen would exceed the limits of this sketch, but something more should be said in a general way to give sharper definition to a sketeh which will enable a later generation to picture this veteran iron master and citi- zen. His was a life from which nothing but good ean follow, and a character that may well serve as an example for all that is highest and best in manhood and citizenship. While he attained a high degree of prosperity it was never gained at the cost of other men's sue- eess. He was also interested in everything for the good of Cleveland and the welfare of its people; was an advocate and praetieer of healthy outdoor life, a keen sportsman, tak- ing his vaeations and recreation in shooting
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and fishing. He was an expert in all things pertaining to sportsmanship. Up to the age of eighty-five he spent many days in the dnek marches belonging to the clubs of which he was a member and with as keen an interest and unerring an aim as he had always been noted for. He exemplified to a high degree that classic ideal of mens sana in corpore sano. When he worked it was with indefatigable energy. When he engaged in recreation he did so with as keen an appetite and vigor as when following his business affairs. He kept himself healthy in mind and body and spirit, and though he lived to be upwards of 87 years of age he never really retired and he came to the end of his life with scarcely a fac- ulty diminished until the day of his final illness. At his funeral gathered notable men who had played important parts in making Cleveland the metropolis of Ohio, men who had been fellow workers with Fayette Brown, fellow builders of Cleveland, and they did honor to his memory as one of the greatest of them all and who had signally enriched and expanded his beloved city by his many enterprises.
On July 15, 1847, Fayette Brown married Miss Cornelia C. Curtiss of Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Fayette Brown was born December 4, 1825, and died April 5, 1899. They were the parents of three sons and two daughters : Harvey Huntington Brown, whose part in Cleveland affairs is described else- where; Florenee C. Brown, of Cleveland; Alexander E. Brown, a great inventor and manufacturer, who died at Cleveland April 26, 1911; William Fayette Brown, who died in 1891; and Mary L. Brown, of Cleveland.
HON. CHARLES STAUGHTON BENTLEY, senior member of the law firm Bentley, McCrystal & Biggs in the Engineers Building, has had a long and most honorable career both in private practice and as a judge in Ohio. He did his first work as a practicing lawyer at Cleveland forty-five years ago.
He was born at Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Sep- tember 5, 1846, son of Staughton and Orsey (Baldwin) Bentley. His grandfather, Rev. Adamson Bentley, was a native of Pennsyl- vania of Quaker stock and became widely known in Northern Ohio as one of the pioneer Disciple preachers. The Bentleys are of Eng- lish ancestry as were also the Baldwin family. Staughton Bentley was born in Ohio and fol- lowed the business of merchandising. He died when Judge Bentley was six years of age. At
that time the care and maintenance of the six children devolved upon the widowed mother. By character and ability she was well fitted for the task. She was a native of Ohio and her ancestors had settled in Connecticut in colonial times.
Judge Bentley attended common schools until he was eighteen when he entered the Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Ohio. In 1864 he took a course in Eastman's Business Col- lege at Poughkeepsie, New York, and then spent three years clerking in a country store at Mantua, Ohio. At the age of twenty-one he entered Hillsdale College at Hillsdale, Michi- gan, and received both the A. B. and A. M. degrees from that institution. He was grad- uated with the class of 1870. The year fol- lowing his college life he was in the whole- sale lumber business at Allegan, Michigan. While there he took up the study of law with Col. B. D. Pritchard, a prominent lawyer and banker of Allegan and nationally known as colonel of the regiment of Michigan cavalry which effected the capture of Jefferson Davis as he was fleeing south from the Confederate capital of Richmond. In the winter of 1872 Judge Bentley came to Cleveland, and studied law in the office of Darius Cadwell, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in September, 1872. At the same time he was admitted to practice in the federal courts. He had a brief experi- ence in practice with the firm of Barber & Andrews at Cleveland, but in February, 1873, moved to Bryan, Ohio, where he formed a partnership with Hon. A. M. Pratt. The law firm of Pratt & Bentley continued from 1873 to 1887. In 1874 he was elected city solicitor of Bryan and in the fall of 1875 was elected prosecuting attorney of Williams County, an office he filled during 1877-79.
In the fall of 1887 Judge Bentley was elected judge of the Circuit Court of the Sixth Ohio District for the short term of one year and was reelected without opposition in the fall of 1888 for the full term of six years. He thus filled that office from 1887 to 1895. Before his elevation to the bench he was little known beyond the counties near his home. His eharacter and services brought him distinction over the entire state. His decisions were not only valuable interpretations of the law but were marked by a clarity and conciseness which left no misunderstanding even on the most controverted points. Many of these de- eisions are found reported in the Ohio Cirenit Court Reports, Vol. 3 to Vol. 10, inclusive. Throughout the seven years he was on the
C.S. Bentley
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beneh his associates were Judges George R. Haynes and Charles H. Scribner. In the at- tainments of its judges the Sixth District at that time was not surpassed by any other Ohio district. While on the bench Judge Bentley was called upon to deal with three notable subjects of litigation in which his work was that of a pioneer. These subjects grew out of the extended use of petroleum, natural gas and electricity as a motive power. The introduction of electricity into cities for the propulsion of street cars was at first bit- terly resisted. Strange as it may seem at the present time one of the chief objections made to its use was that it would be destructive of property and lives to such an extent that its use in the streets would compel the abandon- ment of the thoroughfares by vehicles drawn by horses, and would thus constitute a stand- ing menace to all safety. Injunctions to pre- vent its use were frequently sought, and all these questions had to be tried out and tested before the courts. Thus some of the cases in which Judge Bentley sat as a judge established important precedents and principles in the law dealing with these forms of public utility. Whether on the bench or in private practice Judge Bentley has been regarded as a most able and upright lawyer and a thorough stu- dent with the utmost industry at his command in the preparation of his cases.
In May, 1896, Judge Bentley returned to Cleveland, and for several years practiced as a partner with Charles H. Stewart. He has been a member of various successful law firms of the city. He has served as dean of the law department of Baldwin-Wallace Univer- sity, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Cleveland Law Li- brary, Cleveland Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association, Cleveland Chamber of Com- merce and belongs to the Delta Tau Delta college fraternity. In politics he is a repub- lican.
Judge Bentley married May 4, 1874, Miss Isabel Kempton of North Adams, Michigan. She died October 30, 1877, leaving one daugh- ter, Isabelle, who graduated from the Wom- an's College of Western Reserve University, and married Jay Ambler of Cleveland, Ohio. She died a year later a victim of typhoid fever. July 30, 1890, Judge Bentley married Mary Esther (Derthick) Logan of Toledo. Her death occurred in 1911.
CHARLES LEWELLYN BIGGS, member of the law firm of Bentley & Biggs in the Engineers Building, and also secretary and treasurer of
The Northern Land and Improvement Com- pany, has been an active member of the Cleveland bar for nearly ten years and has had a very wide and extended experience in business affairs, having been state manager of one of the larger insurance companies in Michigan before he qualified as a lawyer.
Mr. Biggs was born at West Newton, Penn- sylvania, August 16, 1870, but spent most of his early youth in Kansas. His parents, An- drew Wesley and Mary F. (Gressley) Biggs, have for forty-six years lived on one farm near Bentley, Kansas. Both parents were born at West Newton, Pennsylvania, and all their chil- dren except the two youngest were born in the same locality. The father and mother married about sixty years ago and they long since celebrated their golden wedding anni- versary at their country home in Kansas. An- drew W. Biggs had a notable record as a Union soldier. He enlisted at the beginning of the war and served until the close with the Thirty-sixth Pennsylvania Infantry. He was three times wounded, receiving wounds at the battle of Antietam and the battle of Gettysburg. At Gettysburg he was shot in the side and the ball which was extraeted after the war is now in the possession of his son, Charles. He was in the three days' fight- ing at Gettysburg and among other notable engagements were those of Spottsylvania Court House, Battle of Bull Run and Chan- eelorsville. He has voted the same way that he fought during the war and has been honored with township offices in his home community of Kansas. Both he and his wife were reared as Methodists, but there being no church of that denomination near their Kansas home they have worshiped in the United Brethren Church. The father for the past forty years has been superintendent of its Sunday school. The father was also a member of the Farmers' Alliance Movement of Kansas. Both parents are rugged sturdy people and they have not only lived honorably and usefully them- selves but have impressed their enviable char- acter upon the lives of their children. The children were eight in number, five sons and three daughters. All except one son grew up and all but one of the daughters are still living. The family record in brief is as fol- lows: Alvin H., who went to the Klondike about the time that gold was discovered in that northwest country and is still a success- ful miner there; Emma, who died in 1914, leaving four children by her marriage to John Myers; James, who was accidentally killed
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at the age of five years; Edward A., an at- torney in Chicago; William S., living with his parents at Bentley, Kansas; Charles L .; Elizabeth, Mrs. Robert T. Trego of Sedgwick, Kansas; and Sarah Jane, Mrs. William Folk of Bentley, Kansas.
Charles L. Biggs received most of his early education in Fort Scott, Kansas. In early manhood he went to Chicago, and soon took up the manufacture of bicycles at a time when they were in the high tide of their popularity. He was a bicycle manufacturer for seven years and organized The Englewood Bicycle and Electrical Company of which he was president. In 1899 Mr. Biggs was appointed state manager for Michigan of The North American Insurance Company of Chicago, and continued to fill that position until 1905 when he resigned.
In the meantime while traveling about Michigan he studied law during leisure time and on leaving the insurance business he en- tered the Cleveland Law School of Baldwin- Wallace University and was graduated LL. B. in 1908. He was admitted to the Ohio bar the same year and also to practice in the United States District Court, being sworn in by the late Judge Taylor.
Beginning practice in Cleveland in 1908, Mr. Biggs was associated with the firm of Biggs & Staiger. In the latter part of 1910 Judge Charles S. Bentley came into the firm, which is now known as Bentley & Biggs.
Mr. Biggs is manager of the northern dis- triet of Ohio for the Knights of the Maeca- bees. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, being affiliated with Woodward Lodge, Mount Olive Chapter, Royal Arch Ma- sons; Holyrood Commandery, Knights Temp- lar; Lake Erie Consistory, Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine and Al Sirat Grotto. He also belongs to the National Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, to the North American Union of Chicago, and the American Insurance Union of Columbus, to the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Civic League of Cleveland and Cleveland and Ohio State Bar associa- tions.
Mr. Biggs resides at 2804 East Overlook Road. May 9, 1899, at Chicago he married Miss May Blanche Fletcher. Mrs. Biggs was born and educated in Chicago, being a gradu- ate of one of the Chicago high schools.
GEORGE H. SCHRYVER. The particular place of usefulness occupied by Mr. Sehryver in Cleveland's life and affairs is as an insurance
specialist. It is significant that Mr. Schryver regards insurance not only as his regular busi- ness but also as his hobby. To it has gone out the best enthusiasm and creative energy of his active years. He has had nineteen years of active experience in the business and each year had a large volume of personal business to his credit before he gave np representing one company or one line to furnish the value of his study and experience to the public at large covering the entire field of insurance.
An interesting little booklet tells the vital points in the Schryver Service. It discusses facts which are generally admitted that the average person has a most casual knowledge of the contents of his insurance policies and that while careful business men call in expert opinion on matters of law, engineering, archi- tecture, real estate and personal illness, the buying of insurance is left largely to the per- suasive eloquence of the representative of a certain company or a certain contract. The Schryver Service is a medium between the buyer of insurance and the entire range of companies and organizations offering insur- ance for sale, and in his selective capacity he is in a position to pick and choose the best contract and company for the specific protection needed by each individual client.
Since establishing his service as an in- surance specialist Mr. Sehryver has been ex- cecdingly careful to maintain the high stand- ards and ideals under which he started, and has developed this unique service to such pro- portions that it is now availed by many of the most careful individuals and corporations in Cleveland, who leave to his judgment the kind and type of insurance covering their spe- cial needs, whether in fire or life, accident or health, or any of the multitudinous risks which at the present time are covered by in- surance organizations.
George H. Schryver is a native of Cleve- land, born September 5, 1878, son of George L. and Fannie (Hapgood) Schryver. His father was born at Napanee, Ontario, Canada, and is still living at Cleveland. He has been identified with different business firms in the city and is now in the real estate department of the Cleveland Trust Company. The mother was' born at Warren, Ohio, was married in Cleveland and died in this city September 4, 1907. Their children, Florence M., Mrs. R. T. Sawyer, Albert A. and George H., are all na- tives of Cleveland and all were educated here. George H. Schryver graduated from the Uni- versity School of Cleveland in 1897. He then
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Somos Hull .
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attended Cornell University two years, and in 1899 took up insurance as his chosen voca- tion. In 1900 he became a member of the firm of Neale Brothers & Schryver, general insurance. He was member of that general agency until 1910, and then utilized his varied experience and study of insurance to good advantage as state manager of the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company. In 1914 Mr. Schryver established the Sehryver Service as an insurance specialist, and along the special lines above described he is the only business man of the kind in Cleveland.
Mr. Sehryver is a republican in national politics, is a member of the Cleveland Y. M. C. A., the Kappa Alpha Society of Cornell University and of the Cleveland Advertising Club.
On Washington's birthday, February 22, 1916, at Cleveland, he married Miss Fannie Irene Sheppard, of Cleveland, daughter of William and Almaeia (Demory) Sheppard. Her parents have lived in Cleveland since 1914, her father being a building contractor. Mrs. Sehryver was born in Virginia and was educated at Washington, D. C. They have one daughter, Fannie Alberta, born in Cleveland.
GEORGE C. HAFLEY began his career with limited means and has attained a dignified and highly creditable place in the Cleveland bar.
He was born at Cleveland September 12, 1876, son of Adam and Amelia (Jackson) Hafley, both now deceased. He was the see- ond of three children. His sister Elizabeth is the wife of Charles B. Robinson. His younger brother, Adelbert H., died at Cleveland in 1903, at the age of twenty.
Mr. Hafley was educated in the public schools of Cleveland and graduated LL. B. from the Cleveland Law School in 1901. For two years he was associated with the law firm of Lang & Cassidy and for three years with E. L. Ifessenmuller. After that he was alone in practice until 1911. For five years Mr. Hafley was connected with the elaim depart- ment of the New York Central Railroad Sys- tem. November, 1915, he resumed general practice in the Engineers Building.
At Bellemeade, Somerset County, New Jer- sey, August 1, 1906, Mr. Haffey married Miss Lila M. Abrams, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Abrams. Mr. and Mrs. Hafley have one daughter, Verna L., who was horn at Cleveland. The family reside at 1716 East Ninetieth Street. With his wife he be-
longs to the Hough Avenue Congregational Church.
JOIIN BARTLETT HULL, who has been located in Cleveland since 1903, is strictly a specialist in the law, and has always given his time and attention to patent law, trade marks and copy- right. Ile is now senior member of the well known firm Hull, Smith, Broek & West, patent law and soliciting, with offices in the Ilumi- nating Building.
Mr. Hull spent his carly life, before coming to Cleveland, around Washington, D. C. The old southern home where he was born, at Arlington, Virginia, is still owned by him and his two sisters. Ile is a son of Truman P'. and Eliza E. (Bartlett) Hull. IIis paternal ancestors were all New England people, though his father was born in Canada during a temporary residence of his parents in that country, but he afterwards naturalized as an American citizen and made farming his chief occupation. The Hulls eame originally from England. Mr. Hull's maternal grandfather Bartlett was a Union soldier, and spent most of his life in New York State, where Eliza E. Bartlett was born. Truman P. Hull and wife had three sons and two daughters. Two of the sons died after reaching manhood and John B. and his two sisters are the only ones now living.
He is the only member of the family in Ohio. Ile was edueated in the public schools of Virginia and the Washington City High School, where he graduated with the class of 1885. After his high school course he entered the United States treasury department in the Revenue Cutter Service and served as cadet, third lieutenant, and second lieutenant, for ten years from 1885 to 1895. His headquar- ters during his eadetship were at New Bed- ford, Massachusetts, on the Salmon P. Chase. a bark-rigged sehoolship named from the fa- mous Ohio statesman. After his graduation from the sehoolship, he served as a commis- sioned offieer on the United States Steamer Grant at New York and on the United States Steamer Boutwell at Savannah. Georgia. He was then detailed to special duty at Washing- ton for over two years, when he resigned from the Revenue Cutter Service to enter the United States Patent Office. He remained there as examiner for over eight years. While at Washington he entered the Corcoran Sei- entifie School of the Columbian (now George Washington) University and graduated as
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Bachelor of Science in 1896. He then took. up the study of law and in 1901 received the degree of LL. B. from the National University at Washington. He was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1901, and then for a period of about two years devoted par- ticular attention to the various legal matters involved in the procedure in the patent office. Thus equipped he came to Cleveland February 1, 1903, and took up the profession of patent law, patents, patent causes and trade marks with the firm of Thurston & Bates. Early in 1904, he formed with Samnel E. Fouts the firm of Fouts & Hull. Later he was in the firm of Bates, Fouts & Hull, and subsequently with Harold E. Smith formed the firm of Hull & Smith, to which were subsequently added Mr. Charles E. Brock and Mr. Brennan B. West, making the firm as it exists at present. Mr. Hull is also president of The Harris Calorific Company of Cleveland.
Politically he has always maintained a strictly independent attitude and has voted for the candidates of both great parties, ac- cording to the dictates of his judgment. He is a member of the Cleveland Bar Association, and of the United States District Bar and Court of Appeals. He also has many fraternal and social interests. He is a member of Wood- ward Lodge No. 508, Free and Accepted Ma- sons ; Cleveland Chapter No. 148, Royal Arch Masons ; Lake Erie Consistory, and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Other associa- tions include membership in the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Cleveland Athletic Club, Shaker Heights Country Club, Civic League, Cleveland Engineering Society, and Cleveland Automobile Chib. He finds his rec- reation chiefly in golf and automobiling. His church home is with the Protestant Episcopal.
born at Arlington, Virginia, in the same house where Mr. Hull was born.
GEORGE W. YORK, member of the firm Otis & Company, investment bankers, has one of the longest continned individual records among the bond men of Cleveland. IIe has been in that line of business with his home in this city for twenty-five years.
Mr. York was born in Oxford County, Can- ada. December 5, 1869, but in 1870 his parents, William and Jane (Jenkins) York, moved to a farm near Port Huron, Michigan. William York was a very active man, and after leav- ing the farm went into the City of Port Huron and became active in polities, serving on the city council a number of times.
George W. York was educated in the pub- lie schools of that city and in 1892 graduated from Hiram College in Ohio with the degree Bachelor of Arts. During the year 1886-87 he lived on the Island of Jamaica at the home of a missionary uncle, and while there. taught school for a time on the island. Mr. York came to Cleveland in 1892, and has been in the bond business in this city since January 23, 1893. He has had long experience in the purchase and sale of bonds, and his work has entailed extensive travel over different sec- tions of the country. Mr. York was selected to establish the bond department of Otis & Company, and has been manager of that branch of the business since February, 1906. In January, 1911, he was made a member of the firm. Otis & Company is one of the old and conservative firms of investment bankers of the country, has offices at Cleveland, Colum- bus, Youngstown, Akron, Denver, Colorado Springs, Casper, Wyoming, and the firm is member of the New York, Cleveland, Chicago and Columbus Stock Exchanges.
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