A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 90

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 90

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Of these schools few has enjoyed a more

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successful record and none have been longer in the field than The Cleveland Automobile School Company, which started in 1903 as one of the commendable branches of endeavor and instruction supplied by the Cleveland Young Men's Christian Association. The first class was organized by the Young Men's Christian Association in 1903 and the school was con- tinued under the auspices of the institution until 1909.

In that year The Cleveland Automobile School Company was organized and incor- porated and has since conducted as a separate institution. In 1917 the school was traus- ferred to its own $50,000 two story brick block at 1815 East Twenty-fourth Street. In this building are class rooms, offices and com- plete garage and shops, containing all the dif- ferent types of automobiles, motors, acces- sories and working machinery which offer complete experience through practical use for every angle of the automobile and tractor in- dustry, from the assembling and setting up of a complete machine to its operation and repair.

The method of teaching pursued is ex- tremely practical. Students are not expected to dig their knowledge out of text books but to acquire it by practical work. The school's shop contains every type of car, engine, part and accessory in use. Upon this equipment each student works, overhauling, adjusting, repairing, testing, until he can perform all of the operations skillfully that have to be done in active automobile service. The work is carefully systematized so that before attempt- ing to do a piece of it the student knows what he is to do and how he should do it. The work of instruction falls into three general divisions. That known as the lecture work consists of explaining the mechanism, operation and re- pairing of cars; shop practice consists in giv- ing students opportunity to perform practical shop work in which they put to use the in- formation gained in the explanations; and the road work or driving practice affords a stu- dent an opportunity for complete practice in driving the various types of cars under all kinds of road conditions.

The chief product of the school is of course trained men. In the fifteen years there have been 4,000 graduates and they are now found in nearly every state of the Union and for- eign countries, and are filling practically every position in the automobile industry as chauf- feurs, repair men, assemblers, testers, racers, instructors, garage managers, sålesmen, demonstrators and designers.

CLYDE H. PRATT, president of The Cleve- land Automobile School Company, is the man whose ability, planning and energies have been chiefly responsible for the growth and upbuild- ing of this important institution in Cleveland automobile circles.

Mr. Pratt was born at Chesterland, Ohio, July 14, 1880, a son of Horace O. and Vinnie (Geary) Pratt. As a boy he lived on a farm, attended district schools, and in 1901 grad- uated from the high school at Chardon, Ohio. He was a thoroughly trained mechanical en- gineer before he became actively connected with the automobile industry. At Cleveland he attended the Case School of Applied Science, from which he graduated in the me- chanical engineering corps in 1906 and that school gave him the degree M. E. in 1909. After graduating iu 1906 he went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was employed as a draftsman with the Harrison Automobile Company until the spring of 1907.

At that date he returned to Cleveland and became principal of the mechanical engineer- ing department and of the automobile school of the Cleveland Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation. He did some hard and earnest work with that institution, having the general oversiglit of the mechanical engineering de- partment in the day and the automobile school during the evening classes. He made the automobile course especially attractive, until that department justified its erection as a sep- arate institution. In September, 1909, M. N. Fowler and Mr. Pratt having organized The Cleveland Automobile School Company, took over the old Young Men's Christian Associa- tion Automobile School department and en- tered upon their new duties with a company. Mr. Pratt is now president and treasurer of the company.

Mr. Pratt and the company are members of the Cleveland Automobile Club, National So- ciety of Automobile Engineers, the Aerial League of America, Cleveland Engineering Society, Antomobile Owners Protective Asso- ciation, Cleveland Branch of the S. A. E., and the Automobile Association of America. He has also written much for automobile papers and is the author of several automobile instruc- tion books, which are in general use in schools and are also the reliable source of reference for thousands of automobile owners. Most prominent of these books are: The Automo- bile Instructor, now used in many automobile schools; The Art of Driving an Automobile; and Motor Mechanics for Beginners.

Raymond F. Blakeslee

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Mr. Pratt is independent in politics and is a member of the Congregational Church. At Cleveland August 18, 1908, he married Miss Lillian M. Ellery. They have two children, Walter and Florence, the former born in 1912 and the latter in 1915.

RAYMOND F. BLAKESLEE, member of the firm of the Blakeslee-Frolking-Prout Com- pany, who had a varied business experience during his early yonth in Cleveland, has sue- ceeded in building up a large and important clientage in general insurance, and is one of the able insurance brokers of the city. His offices are in the Williamson Building.

Mr. Blakeslee was born in Newburg, Ohio, June 15, 1886, a son of Frank and Lueretia B. (Stone) Blakeslee. His father was prom- inently known throughout Northern Ohio in fraternal organizations. The mother is still living in Cleveland. Raymond is the youngest in a family of eight children, three sons and five daughters, two of the sons and four of the daughters still living.

He was educated in the Cleveland public schools and the Spencerian Business College, and from sehool went to work as collector for the jewelry firm of Scribner & Loehr of Cleve- land. He was with them several years as col- lector and in the offices of the firm, and then joined his older brother, Frank R., in the general insurance business. They were to- gether about two years when Raymond Blakes- lee withdrew to set up in business for him- self in 1912. The company's offiees are in the Williamson Building and every year has been attraeting a larger clientage as general brok- ers in insurance of all kinds and handling of surety bonds. The company are also general agents for the Continental Casualty Company of Chicago, Illinois, and several other fire in- suranee companies. Among other business connections Mr. Blakeslee is treasurer of the Wonders Sales Company in the Hippodrome Building.

For three years he was a member of the Cleveland organization of the Ohio National Guard. Ile is a republican in politics and finds his chief recreation in golf and howling. He is president of the Hyklas Bowling Club of Cleveland.

June 7, 1911, Mr. Blakeslee married Miss Rose Gunderman, who was born and educated in Cleveland. IIer father, Simon Gunderman, who died on Christmas Day, 1916, at the age of seventy-two, had been a resident of Cleve- land for half a century or more and had lived

in the one house where he died for over forty- five years. That home was the birthplace of Mrs. Blakeslee, she and her husband were married there, and they still reside in one part of the double house, her mother, Mrs. Catherine Gunderman occupying the other half. Mr. and Mrs. Blakeslee have two chil- dren, Raymond W. and Robert C., both born in Clevelaud.

FRED G. GOLLMAR. There are very few self- made men who, in looking back over the path they have successfully elimbed, will really wish that their lot had been otherwise. There is a compeusating satisfaction in self-carned victory that is very valuable to one who has gained it. One of the prospering business men of Cleveland is Fred G. Gollmar, who is president of F. J. Gollmar & Company, and his business success has been the direct result of his own industry and perseverence.

Fred G. Gollmar was born in Stuttgart, Germany, January 8, 1876. His parents were George and Christina Gollmar, who came to the United States in 1881 and settled with their family at Medina, Ohio. There Fred G. attended the public schools until he was six- teen years of age, when he went to work as an employe of A. I. Root Company, manufac- turers of beekeepers' supplies. He was steady and industrious and remained with the com- pany for seven years, when he came to Cleve- land, where he very soon secured a position as salesman for the firm of Stranahan & Com- pany, where, for ten years he had charge of their cigar department in the Arcade Build- ing. It was this connection that gave him the experience that has since proved so valuable in his own enterprises.

During his long term of service with Strana- han & Company, Mr. Gollmar had contracted a wide acquaintance and made many personal friends, and when he severed his old business relations and purchased a cigar business of his own, at No. 163 Arcade Building, he found a purchasing publie ready for him. As a busi- ness man on his own responsibility, Mr. Goll- mar soon proved the possession of many of the business qualities that are essential to snecess, and in 1912 illustrated it by taking over the cigar business in the Rathskeller on East Fourth Street. In the following year he secured the eigar trade of his former employ- ers, and in 1914 he purchased the cigar stand at No. 742 Euclid Avenue. At present he is operating all the above under the general name of the F. G. Gollmar Company, of which

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he is both president and treasurer. To no outside influence does Mr. Gollmar owe his business success. He worked faithfully and efficiently while in the employ of others and when the opportunity came for inde- pendence, he had the wisdom and good judg- ment to make use of it. He is now one of the substantial business men of this city.

In February 26, 1902, Mr. Gollmar was married at Cleveland to Miss Laura Blashke, and they have one daughter, Anna Louise, who is attending the public school.

Mr. Gollmar has always been an upright and useful citizen and has ever used his influence in the furtherance of movements that promise to be generally beneficial. In political affilia- tion he has preferred to be independent. He belongs to Forest City Lodge, Free & Ac- cepted Masons, to the National Union and to the order of Maccabees, and is known to be very charitable although never advertising his generosity.

ROBERT WALLACE was born May 17, 1834, in Cootehill, Ireland, and was twenty years of age when he sailed for America. He crossed the entire continent, spent several months in California, and from there re- turned East as far as Cleveland.

His accession to Cleveland citizenship is an important event. While for some years he was employed and was known only as an ex- pert mechanic and machinist, his subsequent years brought him to a conspicuous position among thie constructive forces that laid the foundation of Cleveland's importance as a great ship building center. Robert Wallace contributed two things to the Great Lakes shipping industry. He was the first to apply mechanical motive power for the unloading of freight vessels and perhaps of even greater importance he was the first builder of steel construction ships at Cleveland. Today more than at any other time can be appreciated the importance of his work, especially when it is recalled that he was one of the founders of The American Ship Building Company, the largest industry of its kind around the Great Lakes and one of the greatest in America.

Robert Wallace began his career in Cleve- land as an employe of a local machine shop. Fifteen years later in 1869 he became asso- ciated with the late John F. Pankhurst, John B. Cowle, and Henry D. Coffinberry, all well known names in Cleveland industrial circles and these men bought a small machine shop

from Sanderson & Company on Center Street, Northwest. The business soon became known as The Globe Iron Works, and any who are familiar with Cleveland industries, have some appreciation of the significance of the name Globe. The Globe Iron Works bought an in- terest in a dry dock which was in course of construction by the firm of Stevens & Pres- ley. This was the original plant of The Cleveland Dry Dock Company. The busi- ness grew and prospered, and when The Globe Iron Works had outgrown its original quar- ters a new shipyard plant was built on the old river bed.

In 1880 the original partners, Wallace, Pankhurst, Cowle, Coffinberry and John Smith organized The Globe Shipbuilding Com- pany. Six years later The Globe Iron Works was reorganized as The Globe Iron Works Company, and was consolidated with The Globe Shipbuilding Company. In the same year Robert Wallace, Henry D. Coffinberry, William Chisholm, J. H. Wade, Valentine Fries, Capt. Phillip Minch, William M. Fitch, R. R. Rhodes, Quincy Miller, Omar N. Steele and T. W. Bristow acquired the plant of The Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company. This plant was located on the Cuyahoga River and the new proprietors reorganized it as The Cleveland Shipbuilding Company. Robert Wallace was the first president of this enter- prise. On March 16, 1899, he and his asso- ciates incorporated The American Shipbuild- ing Company, taking over both The Globe Iron Works Company and The Cleveland Shipbuilding Company. The latter at that time also owned the Lorain shipyards and a number of other shipbuilding plants at differ- ent places around the Great Lakes from Su- perior to Buffalo. For the next four or five years Robert Wallace sustained many of the heavy responsibilities in connection with the management and the presidency of The Ameri- can Shipbuilding Company, but for the last seven years of his life held a place on the board only as a director.

Reference has already been made to the fact that it was due to Mr. Wallace that the first all-steel boats were built at Cleveland and that machinery was used for unloading cargoes. Another important reform he made in methods of boat construction was originated when the various construction companies were still building wooden vessels. It had long been customary for the shipbuilding com- panies to contract with various firms for the construction of different parts of a boat, and

AM, Carpinter

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these parts were afterwards assembled. Through Mr. Wallace the Cleveland com- panies with which he was connected undertook to construct a ship throughout in their own yards without resort to the specialty factories.

As one of the older residents and business men of Cleveland Mr. Wallace was identified with many other lines of business. He was a director in a number of banks, including the First National Bank, the old State National Bank, from which he resigned some years be- fore his death, and was a director at the time of his death of The Forest City Savings & Trust Company. He was long prominent in the First Congregational Church and for al- most half a century an active Mason. For a number of years and up to the date of his death he was treasurer of Thatcher Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and was also a Knight Templar, a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine.

Robert Wallace died March 6, 1911, at St. Petersburg, Florida, where he had been spend- ing a few weeks in rest and recuperation. He was survived by his wife, who has since passed away, by three brothers, and by three sons and two daughters. The oldest son, J. C. Wallace, was president of The American Ship- building Company when his father died.

ROBERT BRUCE WALLACE, a son of the late ; Robert Wallace and Lydia (Davis) Wallace, has earned a prominent place in Cleveland business affairs along the same lines followed by his father.

HIe was born in Cleveland February 16, 1876. His education was acquired in the West High School of Cleveland, and in the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, from which he graduated in June, 1899, with the degree S. B. in naval architecture. Since that time nearly all his active work has been in shipbuilding. Upon his return to Cleve- land he started in the mould loft, and from that went as superintendent of the Bay City Ship Building Company at Bay City, Miehi- gan. In 1901 he came back to Cleveland as head of the designing department of the American Shipbuilding Company and from 1908 to 1914 was general manager of that great corporation. Mr. Wallace is a direc- tor and vice president of the Kinney Steam- ship Company and president of the Shore Acre Land Company.

He is a member of the Union, Country, Clif- ton, Hermit and Westwood Clubs, and of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. He married at

Cleveland June 24, 1902, Miss Blanche Kin- ney, daughter of A. T. Kinney. They have one child, Marion.

HON. ALFRED GEORGE CARPENTER, late judge of the Court of Appeals of the Eighth Judicial District of Ohio, was a successful Cleveland lawyer nearly forty years before he went upon the bench. His activities were pretty well re- stricted within his profession, and it was as an able lawyer and an equally able judge that his career was most signally useful.

Judge Carpenter was born September 25, 1849, at Newville, Richland County, Ohio, and died January 24, 1918. He was a son of Wil- liam Barney and Emeline (Grove) Carpenter. In the paternal line his ancestry goes back to William Carpenter, who came from England with two brothers in 1636. Judge Carpenter was a member of the Western Reserve Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and his eligibility to that order came from the pa- triotic services of his great-great-grandfather, William Carpenter. William B. Carpenter was also a native of Riehland County and by trade was a tanner, or, as some writers might say, a manufacturer of leather goods. This business he followed fully fifty years and then gave his time to farming. He was a strong and rugged man both physically and mentally and was nearly eighty-eight years of age when he died in June, 1913. He and his wife were married in Riehland County, where Emeline Grove, a native of Montgomery County, Penn- sylvania, had come at the age of four years with her parents. She was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock, and in earlier generations the name was spelled Groff. She died about twenty years ago at the age of seventy-four. Judge Carpenter was thus a combination of two of the oldest and most prominent American stocks, the Yankee New Englanders and the Hollanders who settled in Pennsylvania. He was one of a family of nine children, and three daughters and one son are still living. His brother, O. W. Carpenter, is a Cleveland man, general agent of the Union Life Insur- ance Company. A deceased brother was the eminent alienist, the late Dr. Eugene G. Car- penter, who at the time of his death in 1902 was superintendent of the Christopher Co- lumbus Hospital for the Insane. Judge Car- penter and his brother, Doctor Carpenter, toured Europe together in the year 1894. An- other widely known member of the Carpenter family, a cousin of Judge Carpenter, is the

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newspaper correspondent, Frank G. Carpen- ter, whose home is at Washington and the products of whose pen as a world wide traveler and observer have been published in many of the leading newspapers in the United States.

In his native village Judge Carpenter spent his boyhood, attended school there, in 1870 graduated from the Mansfield High School, and in 1873 took his A. B. degree from the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware. The same institution later gave him the degree Master of Arts. On leaving university in 1873 he became a teacher and for two years was principal of the Mansfield schools. At the same time he studied law, and was admitted to practice in the fall of 1875. The following year he spent in the law department of the University of Michigan and graduated LL. B. in 1876. He made his entry into professional work at Cleveland with the firm of Foster & Hinsdale, and at the end of six months was admitted to a partnership, the title becoming Foster, Hinsdale & Carpenter. Three years later Hinsdale retired, leaving the firm Foster & Carpenter, and in 1885 the senior member withdrew and Judge Carpenter then became the head of Carpenter & Young. This was the beginning of a prominent legal combina- tion of Cleveland. In 1900 the firm became Carpenter, Young & Stocker, and by the ad- mission of J. A. Fenner in March, 1914, it be- came Carpenter, Young, Stocker & Fenner.

In November, 1914, Mr. Carpenter was called from the duties and emoluments of a large private practice to the beuch of the Court of Appeals of the Eighth Judicial Dis- trict, and began his six-year term on February 9, 1915. To this high judicial office he brought abundance of experience, the wisdom of the tried and expert lawyer, and the dignity of an unsullied character. Judge Carpenter was formerly quite active in republican politics, was delegate to various state conventions, and in 1912 became active in the progressive cause and was a delegate to the state progressive convention. From 1898 to 1900 he represented the old Twenty-first, now the Nineteenth Ward, in the Cleveland City Council.

In the course of his active career as a law- yer he acquired some important business in- terests and was vice president of the Hart Manufacturing Company, director of the Ohio Sash and Door Company, director of the F. H. Bultman Company, and director of the Hors- burg-Scott Company. He was a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Civic League, the City Club, Cleveland and Ohio

State Bar associations, and Woodward Lodge of Masons. He also belonged to the Phi Kappa Psi college fraternity. When seeking recrea- tion from the responsibilities of his profession and office Judge Carpenter found it chiefly among his books. For a number of years he carried on a special study of Civil war history, and was thoroughly conversant with the Ger- man language and literature. The family resi- dence is at 2117 East One Hundredth Street.

October 18, 1877, Judge Carpenter married Miss Alice Boyd, of London, Ohio, and they became the parents of three children : Carrie, Mrs. James B. McCrea, and their children are Ruth C., Alexander J., and James Briney, Jr .; Ruth, Mrs. Louis F. Body, has three children, Louis 3d, Alfred C. and Robert W .; and Robert F. Carpenter, who married Ellen Wells Bixby, of Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and they have one child, Robert F., Jr. The daugh- ters were liberally educated in the Woman's College of Western Reserve University and the Ohio Wesleyan University, and also in a young ladies' school at Science Hill, Kentucky. All the children are natives of Cleveland. The son, Robert F. Carpenter, is a graduate of the Central High School of Cleveland and of Dart- mouth College, and is now president of the Robert F. Carpenter Manufacturing Company of Cleveland.

ROBERT F. CARPENTER is president and treasurer of the R. F. Carpenter Manufac- turing Company, a business whose output enjoys a national reputation and use under the trade name of Sanymetal doors and toilet partitions. Mr. Carpenter, the head of the company, is not only a practical business man, but has been a student and experimenter in the uses and adaptations of steel products for a number of years, and has patents covering all the products that go out under the name Sanymetal.

Mr. Carpenter is the only son of the late Judge A. G. Carpenter and Alice (Boyd) Car- penter. While his father has been distin- guished by his attainments and services as a lawyer and jurist, as noted on other pages, the son found his life work in practical busi- ness affairs.

Robert F. Carpenter was born at Cleveland October 16, 1883, and was educated in the grammar and Central High School of Cleve- land, graduating from the latter in 1902, and in 1906 received his A. B. degree from Dart- mouth College. He was a member of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. His university

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career was followed by some experience as a reporter on the staff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but in 1906 he went to work for the Van Dorn Iron Works Company. While with that company for three years he found many opportunities to experiment in steel products, and gained a thorough and detailed know- ledge of the business. In 1909 he formed a partnership with J. S. K. McWatters as manu- facturers agents with offices in the Columbia Building. Then in 1915 Mr. Carpenter or- ganized the R. F. Carpenter Manufacturing Company, and it was incorporated in June, 1916, with himself as president and treas- urer, J. B. McCrea, vice president, and C. J. Daugherty as secretary.

In February, 1916, the company bought and acquired their present plant and factory at 978 East Sixty-fourth Street. This is a highly specialized and well organized insti- tution, with all the facilities and experience of the company directed to the manufacture of Sanymetal doors and toilet partitions. It is the only exclusive concern of its kind in America. As already noted, Mr. Carpenter personally invented this type of construction, which is designed for and is extensively used by industrial plants and all buildings in pub- lie use. Sanymetal has been built and has proved adequate to the long existing demands of architects and building owners for parti- tions that are not only durable and readily installed and economical, but absolutely sani- tary, easy to clean, non-absorbent, and pre- senting continuous surfaces devoid of crack.

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A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 90

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