USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 91
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Considering the short time the company has been in existence and the wide use al- ready made of its products, it is apparent that the aims and expectations of the inventor and his associates have been more than realized. Large quantities of Sanymetal have been in- stalled in the subway stations of New York City, and some of the biggest industrial and other plants in the United States are also cus- tomers. The company employs about forty- five men all told and its goods are shipped all over the United States, while steps have been taken to cover their patents and trade marks in foreign countries.
Mr. Carpenter is a member of the Univer- sity Club and City Club, and the Fairmont Presbyterian Church. He resides on Lincoln Boulevard in Cleveland Heights. On Febru- ary 11, 1911, at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, he married Miss Ellen W. Bixby, who was born and reared in Wilkesbarre, being a graduate of the Girls Institute of that city. She was also sent abroad to finish her studies
by two years of residence in Europe, and while in Paris she first met Mr. Carpenter, who was spending a vacation in foreign travel. Mrs. Carpenter is a member of the Woman's City Club of Cleveland. They have one son, Robert F., Jr.
NATHAN EGBERT WARWICK, a member of the Cuyahoga County bar, born February 11, 1849, on a farm near Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio, is a descendant from one of the oldest and most prominent families in the Great Miami Valley. His grandfather was Jeremiah Warwick, who emigrated from Kentucky to this Ohio Valley in 1806, and bought a farm near Fort Hamilton, and whose father, Wil- liam, came from England to Maryland in Colonial days. His grandfather was a de- scendant of the Short and Messick families, also of English descent, and among the oldest settlers in Sussex County, Delaware.
The father of Nathan, also named Jeremiah, was born in Ohio in 1811, and like most of the hardy pioneers was a farmer, but in the winter taught classes in vocal music in the country schoolhouses. In both vocations he established a name for thoroughness and in- tegrity. IIe married Miss Lydia Smith, the daughter of Daniel Smith, a farmer, who was of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, bought a farm, reared a family of four sons and two daughters and died in his ninetieth year one of the most respected citizens of that com- munity.
Mr. Warwick was the youngest son. His boyhood days were spent on his father's farm three miles north of Hamilton, the county seat. His ambition inspired him to not only do every sort of work that was to be done on a farm, but also to get an education, and after getting all the common schools at that time afforded, he attended the Seven Mile Academy, then conducted by Prof. Benjamin Starr, where he prepared himself for entrance into the collegiate course of the Miami Uni- versity at Oxford, in that county.
In the fall of 1869 he entered the fresh- men class of the university, then under the presidency of Dr. Stanton, taking the classical, as well as the elective courses of astronomy and the calculus, and graduated in the class of 1872, with highest honors. Ile was given the "honor speech" on commencement day, the president at that time being Dr. A. D. Hepburn. While at Miami he was a member of Erodelphian Literary Society, holding each of its offices from president down. Upon grad- nation, the university conferred on him the
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degree of Bachelor of Arts, and later on, June 26, 1866, the degree of Master of Arts.
Mr. Warwiek began the study of law be- fore graduation, and continued while teach- ing a term of district school, finishing under the tutorship of his elder brother, Isaac M., who was then practicing law at Hamilton. He was admitted to praetiee by the Supreme Conrt, October 25, 1873, and at once formed a partnership with his brother, which con- tinned for ten years, during which time the firm was engaged in many important litigated cases in that county.
In 1888 he quit the general practice, and was employed by a firm, as their special eoun- sel, and who were engaged in recovering into the county treasuries of various counties throughont the state, the unlisted or omitted property taxes. This was done under the authority of aets of the Legislature. This position required of him, not only constant devotion to arduous labor, but also a thor- ongh knowledge of all the tax laws of the state and the decisions thereon. This em- ployment called him in turn to the cities of Dayton, Springfield, Toledo and Youngstown, in each of which he spent more than a year, during which time he came in contact with the leading lawyers of those eities in the set- tlement of tax eases, and litigation instituted on behalf of the counties.
In April, 1893, he came to Cleveland to en- gage in this work, which he prosecuted with vigor until 1906, during which time by his cf- forts many suits were by him filed in the courts of the state, and United States, and many millions of untaxed property were placed upon the tax duplicate; and in which work he became known as an expert and authority on tax eases, and was eonsulted by many attorneys on difficult tax' questions.
Mr. Warwick never held any political office, while always democratie in his principles, he has voted for men regardless of party. Dur- ing the Hayes-Tilden controversy for presi- dent in 1876-7, Mr. Warwick edited and man- aged The Butler County Demoerat, for about six months, and then sold it as receiver by the courts order. Later in 1878, he bought the Hamilton Oreus, a small independent newspaper, which he also edited for a time, then discontinued, after editing and eausing to be printed on its presses a biography of the eminent men of the State of Texas, which book was sold in that state by subseription. After coming to Cleveland, he was for two years the president of The Enterprise Print- ing Company. He was always quiek to see the
merits of inventions and was among the first stockholders in The American Multigraph Company.
Mr. Warwick in a measure has contributed to the growth and activities of the eity and to its charities. Besides maintaining the fam- ily home on East Seventy-fifth Street, he has ereeted factory buildings on East Fortieth Street, has also built and owns "The Wash- ington," a large modern fireproof apartment on East Seventy-seventh Street.
He is a member of the Colonial Club, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Willowiek Country Club and other organiza- tions and takes great interest in golf, music, and the drama.
SILAS H. L. COOPER. With the establishment of the Federal Reserve banking system Mr. Cooper was ealled to Cleveland as chief na- tional bank examiner of this reserve distriet and during the past three years has beeome prominently known to the financial leaders of the eity and of the entire state. Mr. Cooper is a veteran national bank examiner, and has performed his official duties under the comp- troller of the curreney for twenty years. His official headquarters at Cleveland are in the Williamson Building, but his legal residenee is still in the State of Tennessee.
Mr. Cooper represents that sturdy and virile elass of people known as the moun- taineers of Eastern Tennessee. He was born in Greene County in the rugged seenery of the Cumberland Blue Ridge Mountains on May 28, 1867. His parents, Lewis and Cynthia A. (Shanks) Cooper, both spent their last years in Tennessee. Silas Cooper was just four years old when on May 28, 1871, his mother died in Washington County. She was then twenty- six years of age. The father, who died in Washington County, Tennessee, June 6, 1889, at the age of fifty-two, was filling the office of Circuit Court clerk of the county at the time of his death. He had come into that of- fiee from his farm of 200 acres. When the Civil war broke out he joined the Union army and was mustered out of service as a first lieutenant in the Fourth Tennessee Regiment. He fought all through the struggle. With many other Tennessee mountaineers he had to exereise great eantion and vigilanee in order to get away from Confederate forces and reach Kentneky to join the Union army. It is a matter of history that the Eastern Tennessee communities furnished more soldiers to the Union army than any other seetion of its pop- ulation in the United States. He was always
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an ardent republican, and was a member of the Masonic order. After the death of his first wife he became associated with the Wrought Iron Range Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and for a number of years was their division superintendent. Mr. Silas Cooper was the only child of his mother. His father married in Washington County, Tennessee, in 1878 Miss Tennessee Keys. By this union there were two daughters, Mary and Amanda. Mary, now deceased, married John Stewart and left three children. Amanda is the wife of James Deakins of Washington County, Tennessee, and the mother of one child.
Silas H. L. Cooper lived from his birth until he was twenty-one years of age on a farm in Tennessee. He attended country schools in Washington County and at the age of eleven began hustling for himself, for a time work- ing as a farm hand at $5 a month and board. In winter seasons he would usually attend school, later attended that noted old insti- tution of higher learning in the eastern part of the state. Greenville and Tusculum College in Green County. Ile . was graduated there with the degree A. B. in 1889. Two winters of his college career he did janitor work to pay his tuition and the entire five years he spent in college he boarded himself and did his own cooking.
He was a young man of twenty-two when his father died in 1889 and his capabilities led Judge A. J. Brown, circuit judge of First Judicial Circuit of Tennessee, to appoint him his father's suceessor in Washington County. Thus he filled the unexpired term as eireuit court clerk, and was then regularly elected to the office in 1890. He was therefore early introduced to publie affairs, but after four years as clerk he entered banking as cashier of the First National Bank of Jonesboro, Tennessee. In June, 1898, Mr. Cooper was called from this local position to the duties of national bank examiner under appointment from the then Comptroller of Currency Charles G. Dawes, now one of Chicago's prominent bankers. In the Middle West and the Middle South Mr. Cooper probably has as extensive acquaintance with national bankers as any other man. For nearly twenty years his services as bank examiner were in the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Michi- gan, and it was from his duties in Michigan and Wisconsin that he was transferred as chief of the Fourth Federal Reserve District in April, 1915, with headquarters at Cleve- land. This Federal Reserve Distriet comprises
the State of Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, part of West Virginia, and part of Western Ken- tucky. There are ten regular bank examin- ers for the distriet and fourteen assistants, all of whom are under the direct supervision of the chief examiner Mr. Cooper. All the reports from this staff of examiners go through his offices in Cleveland.
For purposes of special examination, in ad- dition to his regular duties as above outlined, Mr. Cooper has been called to look after the conditions of banks in Oklahoma, North Da- kota, Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Texas and New Mexico. From his twenty years of active serv- ice over this extensive field Mr. Cooper no doubt could write at least one book and it would be a book full of human nature as well as facts relating to strictly financial affairs. In the course of his examinations he has un- covered twenty defalcations in various banks, and of all the various prosecutions that have been started as a result of his investigations only one man has been acquitted of the charges brought in the indictment.
Politically Mr. Cooper is a republican and in religion is a Presbyterian. He has formed social relations in various cities where he has made his home, and is a member of Ray Lodge No. 47, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, at Jonesboro, Tennessee, of Greenville Com- mandery Knights Templar, and is a Thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a mem- ber of Kerbela Temple, Aneient Arabie Order of the Nobles of the Mystie Shrine of Knox- ville, Tennessee. He belongs to the Union Club of Pittsburgh and when his official duties permit he enjoys no recreation more than hunting.
On October 8, 1896, he married Miss Van- dalia C. Fuqua of Johnson City, Tennessee. She was born at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was graduated in the public schools there and also attended a young ladies' seminary. Her par- ents were Dr. William M. and Vandalia (Davis) Fuqua. Her parents were Virginia people and her mother is now living with Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. Her father was a man of distinction, a surgeon by profession, was em- ployed in that capacity in the Confederate army and for a time ministered to the pris- oners in Libby prison at Richmond. When he was sixty years of age he was appointed a surgeon with the American army during the Spanish-American war. After the Civil war he became a red hot republican. His death occurred at Jonesboro, Tennessee, in 1908.
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HENRY T. LOOMIS. While in recent years Henry T. Loomis was identified prominently with real estate enterprises, to many citizens of Cleveland he was best known in connection with the cause of education. During a long period he was at the head of several educa- tional institutions which were widely and prominently known for the excellence of their courses, and at the time of his death, January 15, 1918, he was associated with the Practical Text Book Company, the publications of which are used in many schools throughout the coun- try. His realty operations were conducted under the names of three concerns, the Loomis Company, the H. T. Loomis Company and the Loomis Realty Company, which have been leading factors in building up and developing the Forest City.
Henry T. Loomis was born November 24, 1856, at Williamsfield, Ohio, a son of Miranda and Sophia (Barton) Loomis, the latter a native of Massachusetts, who died at Kins- man, Ohio, in 1898. Joseph Loomis, the first of the family to come to America, arrived from England in 1638, at which time he founded a home at Windsor, Connecticut, where the homestead has remained in the family name ever since. It is now the home of the Loomis Institute, an institution for practical educa- tion, devoted mainly to teaching agriculture and mechanical arts, endowed by a Chicago member of the Loomis family for $2,000,000, and dedicated in 1915. The grandfather of Henry T. Loomis fought in the Revolutionary war, being an officer in the army of General Washington. Miranda Loomis, father of Henry T. Loomis, was born in Massachusetts, and in 1820 left that state for Ohio, driving from Buffalo, New York, with an ox-team and becoming one of the first settlers in the vicin- ity of Williamsfield when that locality was a wild, wooded country, filled with all kinds of big game. He engaged in farming there and assisted in building the old state roads and canals, and was prominent in his locality, serv- ing as justice of the peace for twelve years and always acting under the theory that it was best to settle disputes out of court if possible. He rounded out a long and honorable career and died at Williamsfield in 1894.
Henry T. Loomis was educated in the public schools of Williamsfield and Grand River In- stitute at Austinburg, Ohio, Jacob Tucker- man, principal, and first entered a commercial school in penmanship with Platt R. Spencer, anthor of the Spencerian system of writing, with whom he was associated two years as a
pupil. Subsequently he went to the Union Business College at Cleveland, which, founded in 1848, was the first of the celebrated Bryant & Stratton Colleges, which were later founded in more than forty cities throughout the northern and eastern states. For three years Mr. Loomis taught in the country district schools when teachers "boarded around," both before and after coming to Cleveland, and after taking his commercial course was a teacher for one year in the Columbus (Ohio) Business College and for four years in the Bryant & Stratton Business College at Buffalo, New York, this latter the second one founded by the company, and established in 1852.
After leaving the latter institution Mr. Loomis formed a partnership with Elias R. Felton and Platt R. Spencer, under the name of Spencer, Felton & Loomis, the name of the school being subsequently changed to Spen- cerian in honor of Mr. Spencer. This company then purchased the Mayhew, Bryant & Strat- ton College, of Detroit, of which Mr. Loomis was associate principal for four years, then returning to Cleveland in 1887 and again con- ducting the school with Messrs. Felton and Spencer until 1895, when it was incorporated. The Spencerian school has always been known as one of the largest and most prominent com- mercial schools in the country and has gradu- ated nearly 50,000 pupils up to date. Mr. Loomis had more than 25,000 of these pupils in his various institutions prior to his disposal of the schools. From 1895 until 1901 the school was conducted under Mr. Loomis' sole management, but in the latter year it was sold to E. E. Merville and Caroline T. Arnold, of Buffalo, who are the principals today.
Mr. Loomis began the publication of school text books in 1889 and was engaged in that business with his two sons as partners, under the style of the Practical Text Book Com- pany. Mr. Loomis and his wife are the authors of several of the books published by this company, among them being: "Practical Letter Writing," "Practical Spelling," "Practical Arithmetic" and "Everybody's Dictionary." The books are primarily for use in commercial schools and colleges, high schools and academies, and are distributed in all parts of the world. H. T. Loomis until his death was the president of this company, Har- old C. Loomis, the secretary ; Leroy H. Loomis, treasurer.
Three incorporated real estate companies are owned by the family, Mr. Loomis and his sons being the officers. The Loomis Company
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owns the property and large store building at 1021-1031 Euclid Avenue, which land was formerly the property of Mayor George W. Gardner. The H. T. Loomis Company owns the large northwest corner of Euclid Avenue and Eighteenth Street, on which stands the Hotel Arden and commercial buildings includ- ing the Spencerian Commercial School. This property formerly belonged to the Kelley Estate. In 1835 the Kelley's erected the home which entertained President Harrison while he was on his way to the inauguration, and that house was remodeled into the building now occupied by the Spencerian College. The Loomis Realty Company owns the former Foote homestead on the south side of Euclid Avenue, just west of Eighteenth Street, and other properties. Mr. Loomis was formerly a member and president of the Colonial Club, and belonged to the Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of the Euclid Avenue Con- gregational Church, of which he was a trustee for several years, and was a republican in polities, although not active.
At Rochester, Indiana, December 26, 1882, Mr. Loomis was married to Lida C. Stradley, a native of Indiana and a daughter of Charles .J. Stradley, a former merchant of Rochester, now deceased. Mrs. Loomis is prominent in women's clubs and in church work. She is president of the Conversational Club, the oldest women's literary eluh at Cleveland ; was formerly president of the Women's Associa- tion of the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church, of which she is a member; and is a trustee of the Central Friendly Institute. Mr. and Mrs. Loomis became the parents of two sons : Leroy H. and Harold C. The latter married Frances Coate, a daughter of M. D. Coate, a state automobile agent of Cleveland. ITarold C. Loomis is a first lieutenant in the Ordnance Department in the United States Army. Mr. and Mrs. H. T. Loomis traveled extensively, not only in their own country, but in Europe, and also made visits to the Mediter- ranean, Egypt, the West Indies, Mexico, Alaska and Canada, and were in Lucerne, Switzerland, when the great war broke ont. The beautiful family home is located near Wade Park, at 1676 Magnolia Drive.
ERNEST E. MERVILLE. In the annals of higher and business education at Cleveland there has probably been made no such prog- ress in so short a period of time as that which has characterized the Spencerian College in recent years. This institution has grown
from a modest school of commercial learning, boasting of but two departments, into one of the largest and best known of its kind in the country, with more than twenty departments, and this great advancement has been mado under the supervision of Ernest E. Merville, who has occupied the post of president since 1904.
Ernest E. Merville was born in Wyoming County, New York, September 24, 1869, a son of Euphrates Merville, born in the Mo- hawk Valley of New York, a farmer who died in 1891 at the age of fifty-one years. In 1864 Euphrates Merville served seven months as a private in the Union Army in Company G, 187th Regiment, New York Volunteers, and took part in nine severe engagements, in- cluding Warren, Weldon Railroad and the second battle of Bull Run. He saw more active fighting in his seven months of service than one of his brothers did during four years as a soldier. All of his brothers and a number of his cousins served in the war. One of his brothers, Addison G. Merville, who died in March, 1916, tanght sixty-two con- seentive terms of district and select school in Western New York. The Mervilles were of French-English descent. The mother of Ernest E. Merville, Julia A. (Barton) Mer- ville, a native of New York and now a resident of Cleveland, comes from an old American family of English descent, and is a cousin of Clara Barton, of Red Cross fame.
Ernest E. Merville attended the public schools, high schools, select schools and a private school, as well as the Bryant & Stratton School at Buffalo, New York, while Dr. J. C. Bryant, the first principal of the Cleveland school, was located in the same capacity at Buffalo, of which institution his son is now the head. Mr. Merville was for a time engaged as a bookkeeper and cashier in Western New York, and from the time he was sixteen years old until he was twenty-three was employed during the school vacational periods in the mercantile business. As a boy he was advised that one of the surest roads to success lay in always doing his work so well that he could return to any position which he had left. This idea made a strong impression upon him, and as a result every employer he ever had asked him to "come back." This is a policy which he still teaches to the boys and girls who pass through his school, impressing upon them that in so doing they are building for their entire future. On one of Mr. Merville's vacational periods he
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was employed in a Buffalo railroad freight office, where there were thirty-five other men. He followed the policy outlined above, and when it came time for him to return to school and resume his studies, the chief clerk did not wish to release him, and offered him seventy-five dollars per month to remain. This was big wages for a boy at that time, but he decided for further education and had the courage to refuse the tempting offer. He has, as a result, never felt timid about advis- ing a boy or girl to leave work, if possible, for education.
In his studies Mr. Merville took a great in- terest in mathematics and systems of account- ing and the day he left commercial college was offered three positions. One of these was a teacher's position, offered by Bryant & Strat- ton. and although he had never contemplated teaching or engaged therein, he accepted the proposition, as it offered further opportunity for study. He began teaching the following Monday and went on with his studies in higher accounting and auditing, work which he soon began practicing outside of teaching hours. He was for nine years at the Bryant & Stratton school and for seven years occupied the chair of auditing and accounting. Mr. Merville was advised of the opportunity opened at Cleveland by wire and took over the Spencerian College in 1902. He acted as its secretary for two years, and since 1904 has been its president, his partner, Miss Caro- line T. Arnold, acting in the secretarial posi- tion.
When Mr. Merville took the school it had, as before noted, but two departments-busi- ness and stenography. Since that time other departments have been added as follows: Bookkeeping; advanced bookkeeping; short hand, stenotyping; speed dietation; touch typewriting; penmanship ; English (prepar- atory and advanced) : civil service; college preparatory under state supervision ; private secretary; cost accounting; business admin- istration with the degree of B. C. S .; normal commercial training with state certificate; salesmanship and advertising ; higher account- ing and auditing; Spanish and South Amer- ican; Burroughs addition ; bookkeeping and calculating machine. A four-year course is given with nine elective studies and a student can secure the necessary sixteen credits for a first grade certificate in less time by taking up the right kind of preparatory studies, all of this being determined upon entrance. Mr. Merville had a dream of what the com-
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