USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 82
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EUGENE C. PECK. Both the industrial and civie community of Cleveland recognize in Eugene C. Peck a man of exceptional qualifi- cations and attainments, one who has pursued a straightforward career to bigger responsibili- ties and better things for himself and for the interests he has served.
He was born at Akron, Ohio, December 20. 1867. His father. Hubert C. Peck, was born near the same Ohio city December 5, 1847, at- tended the public schools of Akron and fol- lowing an apprenticeship became a cabinet maker at Akron, a trade he followed and by which he provided the urgent necessities for home and growing family until his death. He was a soldier of the Civil war, having served two enlistments with the Twenty-third Army
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Corps. At Akron he married Lydia C. Clouner, who was born near that city Decem- ber 12, 1847.
Eugene C. Peck was the oldest in a family of six children. He did not begin life the son of a wealthy father, and when at the age of seventeen he left the public schools of Akron it was to begin an earnest career of work and self support. For four years he was an ap- prentice machinist with the Akron Iron Com- pany and was then employed and given the full wages of a regular machinist. He has never been the kind of man who is content with routine performance and rewards. One of Akron's leading industries, Whitman, Barnes & Company, eventually put him in charge of their machine shops, and he re- mained as operating superintendent for five years. Up to that time his attainments and abilities were those secured by thorough ex- perience, but his future was handicapped by lack of special technieal qualifications. To
supply that need he spent two years in Stev- ens Institute as a student of mechanical en- gineering. Following that he remained in the East for several years, for two years had charge of the shops of the T. & B. Spool Com- pany at Danbury, Connecticut, also spent six months in putting a plant into operation at New Bedford, Massachusetts, and for another year had active charge of S. W. Cards Tap & Die Works.
On coming to Cleveland Mr. Peck went with the Cleveland Twist Drill Company as me- chanical engineer, and in 1904 was promoted to general superintendent of this well known Cleveland industry. He is a director of the company and also a director of the Cleve- land Life Insurance Company, the Bankers Guarantee & Mortgage Company, and the Winton Hotel Company. Eugene C. Peck, in April, 1918, was made a lieutenant colonel in the ordnance department of the army and took charge of the gauge section of the Engi- neering Bureau.
Mr. Peck is founder and president of the Modern Methods School Company of Cleve- land. His long experience in engineering lines makes him an honored member in the So- ciety of Automobile Motive Engineers, of the American Electrical Chemical Society, and he is chairman of the Industrial Preparedness Committee of the Cleveland Engineering So- ciety. He is also an honorary member of Troop A of the Ohio National Guard of Cleve- land, is a member of the Chambers of Com- merce of Akron and Cleveland and a mem-
ber of the American Society of Mechanical En- gineers. In Masonry he is affiliated with Union Lodge No. 40, Ancient Free and Accepted Ma- sons, at Danbury, Connecticut, with Eureka Chapter No. 23, Royal Arch Masons, also of Danbury, Oriental Commandery No. 12, Knights Templar, of Cleveland, Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and Al Sirat Grotto No. 17, Mystic Order Veiled Prophets.
In 1910 Mr. Peck bought a farm at Mace- donia, Ohio, and has since combined the duties and interests of a rural neighborhood with his city activities. He lives at Macedonia on the farm and specializes in pure bred Guernsey cattle. He is a republican but never had at any time considered political honors until on November 6, 1917, he was elected mayor of the Town of Macedonia.
At Akron May 1, 1899, he married Miss Ivy Kessler. They have one son, Lionel S., who is a graduate of the Cleveland High School and the Ohio State University. After his univer- sity career he took charge of his father's farm and also busied himself with meehanieal lines until January, 1916, when he enlisted in the Cleveland Grays and saw some active duty on the Mexican border in Texas. He is now sta- tioned in the National Army Encampment at Montgomery, Alabama, as corporal in charge of a machine gun squad.
CAPT. ALVA BRADLEY in the middle decades of the last century was easily one of the fore- most figures in the shipping industry of the Great Lakes. His career was a progressive one. He began as a sailor before the mast, was a vessel master many years, and built and owned boats until the Bradley fleet was one of the largest under individual management on the lakes. With all due credit to her other sources of prosperity Cleveland is primarily a great port of commeree, and it would not be casy to over emphasize the part played by Captain Bradley in building up these trans- portation interests.
He was of New England birth and ancestry and at the same time represented one of the early pioneer families of the Ohio Western Reserve. He was born at Ellington, Connee- tieut, November 27, 1814, son of Leonard and Roxanna Bradley.
Leonard Bradley was born in the Town of Ellington, Tolland County, Connecticut, November 4, 1792. He migrated to Brown- helm, Ohio, in the year 1817, located lands, and remained two years, after which he re- turned to Connecticut and married Roxanna,
A. Bradley
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daughter of William Thrall, of Tolland County, and immediately returned to Ohio, where he was identified as a pioneer farmer. By this union were born four children, viz., Capt. Alva Bradley ; William Bradley, a resi- dent of Brownhelm; Betsy, deceased; and Julia. Mrs. Leonard Bradley died February 25, 1858.
Mr. Bradley married for his second wife Emily, widow of William Nye, of Onondago County, New York, and daughter of John Thompson, who was of Scotch birth and an- cestry. Mr. Bradley was an ardent advocate of republicanism during his latter days, being formerly a member of the old whig party, and served his township as trustee and in other offices from time to time. When a young man he carried a lady (who wished to visit friends, not having seen any white ladies in several months) over the Vermillion River on an ox, he riding one and the lady the other ox, the oxen having to swim on account of the depth of the stream.
Mr. Bradley remained on the old homestead until the date of his death, which occurred May 3, 1875. - His wife survived him, still re- maining on the old homestead, surrounded by many friends and tenderly cared for in her de- clining years by her children.
In 1823 the Bradley family gave up a home among the barren hills of New England and started for the new Connecticut of Ohio. A wagon carried them to Albany, New York, whence they journeyed by canal boat to Buf- falo, and there took a small sailing vessel which carried them the rest of the way to Cleve- land. This was Alva Bradley's first experi- ence on the Great Lakes, and it is possible that at this time he received some of the im- pressions which seriously and permanently in- clined him to a scafaring career and which caused him some ten years later, after he had gained his education in the common schools and had worked with his father to clear away woods and brush from the homestead near Brownhelm in Lorain County, to seek oppor- tunity to become a sailor. It is said that he left his parents' home with all his possessions in a bundle and gained his first opportunity as a sailor on board the schooner Liberty. He worked before the masts on several vessels, in- elnding the Young Leopold, Edward Ban- croft, Express and Commodore Lawrence. The first boat he sailed as master was Olive Branch, running in trade from the island to the South Shore ports of Lake Erie. This boat was owned by Captain Joseph P. Atkinson,
and was a small vessel of only fifteen tons. IIc next had charge of the schooner Commodore Lawrence, owned by the Geauga Furnace Com- pany of Vermillion. It was a boat of forty- seven tons, old measurement. He was next master in succession of the schooner South America, which, in association with Ahira Cobb, Captain Bradley built at Vermillion, a boat of about two hundred tons; the schooner Birmingham, also built at Vermillion by Mr. Burton Parsons and sold to the firm of Cobb & Bradley, who by that time had formed a close partnership in the vessel business; also the schooner Ellington. The firm of Brad- ley & Cobb constructed one of the first pro- pellers operated on the Great Lakes, the old Indiana, of which Captain Bradley was mas- ter. The Indiana, of 350 tons, sailed between Buffalo and Chicago. Captain Bradley com- manded all these boats and others and was active on the lakes as a sailor and master for about fifteen years.
Soon after the construction of the Indiana he came ashore and employed others to com- mand his craft. He located his home at Ver- million, and there took active charge of the ship yards. A partial list of the vessels Captain Bradley built in later years is as fol- lows, indicating the name of the boat, the year it was built, and its tonnage: The Chal- lenge, 1853, 238; the Bay City, 1854, 190; the C: C. Griswold, 1855, 359; the Queen City, 1856, 358; the Wellington, 1856, 300; the Ex- change, 1858, 390; the S. H. Kimball, 1861, 418; the Wagstaff, 1863, 412; the J. F. Card, 1864, 370; the Escanaba, 1865, 568; the Ne- gannee, 1867, 850. All of these at the particu- lar time they were constructed was as large as could be handled through streams and at the dock.
From 1868 to 1882 Captain Bradley in as- sociation with others built eighteen vessels and at the time of his death it comprised a large fleet. In 1868 he centered all his in- terests at Cleveland, moving his shipyards to that city. He continued to build and float lake vessels at the rate of one each season. His business became so extensive that he deemed it economy to carry his own insurance, and considering the efficiency and carefulness of the organization he built up and his good for- tune this was a step of wisdom and prudence. It is said that he never lost a vessel or had a wreck during his personal career as captain, and as a vessel owner only five boats were lost.
Captain Bradley was a man of simple, mat-
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ter-of-faet character. His office was always exceedingly plain. For several years it was on Water Street and later in the Merchants National Bank Building at the corner of Su- perior and Bank streets. He was noted for the regularity of his habits. Like many old sailors he was a man of few words, though in his personal relations was not by any means stern and had a reserve fund of quiet but wearing geniality. One who knew him says that he had about "the brightest pair of eyes that ever twinkled in a man's head." He began life without a dollar, and was rated as one of the wealthy men of the city when he passed away at his home on Euelid Avenue November 28, 1885, just one day after his seventy-first birthday. His mother died at the old homestead at Brownhelm in 1858, his father dying about 1875.
In 1851 Captain Bradley married Helen M. Burgess, of Milan, Ohio. Mrs. Bradley died Angust 26, 1896. All the shipping inter- ests around the Great Lakes recognized a dis- tinct loss in the death of Captain Bradley, and his standing in business affairs is also indi- cated by the fact that resolutions of respect were offered by the Cleveland Board of Trade and the Savings & Trust Company.
His extensive business interests have been continued by his only son, Morris A. Bradley, who is in many ways a counterpart of his father, especially in his possession of quiet, unostentatious manners and his rugged busi- ness integrity. To Captain Bradley and wife were born four children, the son Morris be- ing the third in age. The three daughters are: Mrs. Norman S. Keller, of Cleveland; Mrs. C. E. Grover, who died in December, 1886; and Mrs. C. F. Morehouse, who died in 1894.
MORRIS A. BRADLEY. While statistics are not biography, the most significant statement of Morris A. Bradley's position in Cleveland life and affairs and his manifold interests is furnished in a list of the corporations and other organizations with which he is actively identified at the present time.
He is president of the Cleveland and Buffalo Transportation Company, president of the United States Coal Company, secretary and treasurer of the Erie Building Company, sec- retary and treasurer of the Alva Realty Com- pany, secretary and treasurer of the St. Clair Realty Company, president of the Bradley Electrical Company, and he and his two sons own and operate the Bradley Light, Heat and
Power Company. For a number of years he was president of the State National Bank, which was absorbed by the First National Bank of Cleveland. He is also a member of the University School Corporation.
Mr. Bradley is a son of the late Captain Alva Bradley, whose achievements as a lake eaptain, boat builder and vessel owner have been noted on other pages of this publication. Morris A. Bradley was born at Cleveland August 15, 1859. He acquired a good ednea- tion in publie and private schools and his first business training eame as an employe of the wholesale hardware house of Lockwood, Taylor & Company. After that he was a student in Hiram College. In 1880 he entered business with his father and at the death of his father five years later assumed manage- ment of the estate, which his own judgment and ability have greatly increased. Mr. Brad- ley is one of the largest owners of real estate in Cleveland and has erected many large build- ings in the business distriet. For a number of years he was active in the boat building business and at one time owned a fleet of twen- ty-six boats on the Great Lakes. Most of these were part of the fleet built up by his father and were the old style boats of thirty years ago and were finally put out of commission by the advance of modern improvements.
Mr. Bradley is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and belongs to the Country Club, the Roadside Club, the Shaker Lakes Club, City Club, Civie League and the Union Club. He attends and supports the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland.
May 10, 1883, he married Miss Anna A. Leininger, daughter of the late C. C. Lein- inger of Cleveland. Mrs. Bradley was born and educated in New York City. They are the parents of five children: Alva, Charles L., Helen M., Eleanor and Catherine A. All were born in Cleveland, and were liberally educated here and elsewhere. The oldest daughter, Helen M., attended a young ladies seminary in the East and is now the wife of Malcolm B. Vilas of Cleveland. The daugh- ters also attended the Hatheway-Brown School and Eleanor is a member of the elass of 1919 in that noted Cleveland private school. Both sons attended Cornell University, Charles L. graduating from that institution. Both boys are graduates of the University School of Cleveland. The family are prominent socially. Mr. Bradley always found mueh reereation as a member of the Gentlemen's Driving Club and as an expert amateur horseman. His
HA. Avadly
William @ Mueller.
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sons are active young business men and are members of a number of corporations and companies. The family reside at 7217 Euelid Avenue, and the business offices of Mr. Brad- ley are in the Marion Building at 1276 West Third Street, N. W.
THOMAS L. GAWNE is member of the well known Gawne family that has figured so prom- inently in building and construction at Cleve- land for more than half a century. Mr. Gawne himself has been identified with the building trades and the general contracting business the greater part of his active eareer, and is one of the executive officials of the Cleveland Trini- dad Paving Company.
He was born at Cleveland February 4, 1863, son of the late John Gawne, a native of the Isle of Man, who came to Cleveland in the early '50s and was a prominent building eon- tractor here till he retired in 1889. After get- ting his education in the publie schools of Cleveland to the age of eighteen Thomas L. Gawne went to work for his father, and under that master builder learned every branch of the trade. After that he was associated with his father and brothers as building contractors until 1889.
In that year Thomas L. Gawne accepted a position in the sewer department of the city engineer's office, and was there five years be- fore he went with the Cleveland Trinidad Pav- ing Company as foreman. In 1902 he was promoted to superintendent of construction, and since 1914 has also held the offices of vice president and director. During this time Mr. Gawne has supervised the laying of a large part of the asphalt pavements in Cleveland and suburbs.
Fraternally he is a past master of Forest City Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, is a member of Webb Chapter, Royal Arch Ma- sons ; Oriental Commandery, Knights Temp- lar; Lake Erie Consistory of the Seottish Rite, and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
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HARRY W. HOSFORD was born in Watertown, New York, January 9, 1885, a son of Clark B. and Edith A. Hosford. Coming to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1906, at the age of twenty-one, he secured a position with the firm of C. E. Deni- son & Company, investment bond dealers, with whom he remained as office man and sales- inan for six years. Ile quickly distinguished himself after getting on the sales force, and he has probably sold as many bonds and
placed as large and important issues as any other man of his age in Cleveland. From the Denison Company he went with Spitzer-Rorick & Company, investment bond dealers of New York, Chicago and Toledo, as bond salesman. Ile traveled for this firm all over the State of Ohio. Mr. Hosford entered the bond business for himself February 1, 1916. Ilis offices are in the Union National Bank Building, and he deals in general corporation and municipal bonds. He is a member of the Masonie Order, the Chamber of Commerce, and is a republi- ean.
WILLIAM C. MUELLER is a young Cleveland lawyer with a brilliant future, based upon the earnest and successful work he has done sinee his admission to the bar. He is a member of the firm of Jaglinski & Mueller, with offices in the Engineers' Building.
Mr. Mueller was born in Cleveland, July 15, 1892, a son of Louis and Elizabeth (Wentz) Mueller. Louis Mueller was born near Berlin, Germany, came to the United States immediately following the close of the Franco-Prussian war, was a stranger in a strange land, and located at Cleveland, where for five years he was engaged in the liquor business at the corner of West Twenty-fifth Street and Franklin. He was a well known citizen and had a large friendship and per- sonal following. He died at the age of forty- five. in November, 1900, on the day that Me- Kinley and Roosevelt were elected president and vice president of the United States. After coming to Cleveland he became acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Wentz, who had come to this city shortly after him, in company with her mother and a younger sister. She was also born near Berlin and is still living at the old home in Cleveland. She is the mother of two sons, George and William C.
William C. Mueller was educated in St. Ignatius College in Cleveland, in which in- stitution he spent seven years and completed the work of the sophomore class. For five years he was also in St. Joseph Convent. He acquired his knowledge of the law by study in the night classes of the Cleveland Law School of Baldwin-Wallace University, and graduated and obtained his diploma with the class of June, 1916. In the following month he was admitted to the Ohio bar, and in Au- gust. 1916. he entered the practice of law in the Engineers' Building. where he is still located. In September. 1916, he was joined
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in practice by Frank J. Merrick and Joseph P. Jaglinski. Mr. Jaglinski was a graduate of the same law class as Mr. Mueller, while Mr. Merrick had finished his course the previous year. Later the firm name was changed to Jaglinski & Mueller. Both are able young at- torneys, and though recently established have built up a very excellent clientele and have influential relations.
Mr. Mueller, who is unmarried, lives with his mother in Cleveland. He is a member of St. Patrick's Catholic Parish and of the Knights of Columbus. In politics he is a re- publican. His chief recreation is following the great national pastime of baseball. For ten years he has been a member of the Cleveland Amateur Baseball Club.
CARL W. SCHAEFER. For fourteen years Carl W. Schaefer has been practicing law at Cleveland with steadily growing success and reputation. He is a member of the firm Litzler & Schaefer, attorneys and counsellors at law in Society for Savings Building. This is one of the representative law firms of Cleveland. and both members are high grade lawyers, with reputation and clientage securely estab- lished.
Mr. Schaefer is a native of Springfield, Ohio, where he was born June 1, 1881, a son of Charles II. and Susan B. Schaefer. Both par- ents are still living at Springfield. For the past forty-five years Charles H. Schaefer has been a leading wholesale merchant at Spring- field and is head of the business conducted by Charles H. Schaefer & Son.
Carl W. Schaefer spent his early life in Springfield, graduated from the high school there in 1900, afterwards attended the Uni- versity of Michigan, and finished his law studies in Cleveland Law School of Baldwin- Wallace College, graduating LL. B. in 1904. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in the same year and has since been admitted to practice in the federal courts. Mr. Schaefer is a mem- ber in good standing of the Cleveland Bar As- sociation, the Ohio State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
He began practice alone at Cleveland in 1904. and later was made a member of the firm Morgan, Litzler & Schaefer. That part- uership lost its senior member when Robert M. Morgan was elevated to the bench in the Court of Common Pleas, and since then it has been continued as Litzler & Schaefer.
In politics Mr. Schaefer is nominally a democrat but in fact and practice strictly in-
dependent. In the fall of 1917 he was virtu- ally drafted as candidate of the independent citizens of Lakewood, where he resides, as their candidate for mayor of that suburban town.
Mr. Schaefer has had a very successful ex- perience both in and out of the strict lines of the law. For seven years he was private sec- rotary to the president of the First National Bank of Cleveland, and that gave him an intimate acquaintance with banking affairs. He is vice president of the Chrisford Construc- tion Company, the largest contracting firm at Lakewood, is vice president of the Cleveland Stoneware Company, is vice president of the Cleveland Bottle and Cork Company; is sec- retary of the Cummer Products Company, manufacturers of dry cleaning and shoe dress- ing preparations; is vice president of the Cleveland Piano Company; and counsellor and a director of the Lakewood Masonic Temple Company. He is also a member of the City Club and Civic League of Cleveland, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Cleve- land Advertising Club, the Lakewood Cham- ber of Commerce, and prominent both in Ma- sonry and the Knights of Pythias. He is affiliated with Pearl Lodge No. 163, Knights of Pythias, which he has served as chancellor and as representative to the Grand Lodge. His Masonic affiliations are with Lakewood Lodge No. 601, Free and Accepted Masons ; Cunningham Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Oriental Commandery No. 12, Knights Temp- lar; Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and the Scottish Rite Consistory. Some of his more intimate interests are revealed in his offices, on the walls of which hang portraits of representative American statesmen, and a large group picture of famous old buildings and historic landmarks in the United States.
HARRY ALFRED PETERS. For nearly thirty years the University School has occupied a distinctive place in the educational facilities of Cleveland, especially as a preparatory school from which hundreds of young men have entered the higher institutions of learn- ing. The University School has a high place in the affections of its hundreds of loyal alumni, and the records of these alumni as successful men in the world .of affairs is the most complete testimony to the value and ef- ficiency of the school itself.
Because of his position for the past fifteen years as instructor and principal of the Uni- versity School there is a general interest in the career of Harry Alfred Peters. Mr. Peters
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came to Cleveland soon after he graduated as has been a member of the governing board of the Yale Alumni Association for Cleveland an honor man from Yale University. He was born at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, August , and vicinity, belongs to the University Club, 4, 1879. Ile graduated from high school in Chamber of Commerce, and the Second Pres- byterian Church. January 1, 1908, at Gilroy, California, he married Miss Rosamond Zuek. They have one son, Richard Dorland. 1894 and after two years in the paymaster's office of the Lehigh Valley Railroad entered Phillips Andover Academy, graduating in 1898. From this one of the most exelusive preparatory schools of New England, he en- tered Yale, where he finished his academic work in 1902. Mr. Peters at Andover won prizes in Latin and Greek, honors in mathe- matics and English, was in the Means Prize Speaking Contest and was a commencement speaker. At Yale he won honors for two years in modern languages, and was elected a Phi Beta Kappa. He was also a member of the senior class baseball team.
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