A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 93

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 93

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Mr. Godman is a republican, a member of the Young Men's Business Club, and is rapid- ly becoming known among the larger com- mercial leaders of the city. On March 31, 1917, at Cleveland, he married Ethel Lewis, daughter of John and Ellen Lewis, retired residents at 1752 East Sixty-third Street in Cleveland.

HI. O. LEINARD. Business as well as life pre- sents an infinite variety of experience, but a large number of men as a result of environ- ment, special circumstances or personal in- clination, seem destined to fall into one more- or less narrow channel, and while they grow and achieve success their range of interests is always limited. It is in contrast with this usual condition that the career of H. O. Lein- ard stands as an interesting exception. Mr. Leinard is active manager of the Ohio State Telephone Company of Cleveland, a very im- portant executive office for a man of thirty- five, but in his years since boyhood he has hecome acquainted by practical work with half a dozen different vocations.

Mr. Leinard was born at Bryan, Ohio, where his parents, Edgar A. and Minta

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(Dick) Leinard, are still living. Both par- ents are natives of Ohio, and his father is a traveling salesman. II. O. Leinard was edu- cated in the public schools of his native town and the high school at Kenton, Ohio. His father owned a farm and placed the boy in charge of its operations during his absence on the road, but after two years the son decided that farming was not his real forte, and he took a change of occupation, spending a year as a grocery delivery boy and another year as clerk in a department store. Later H. O. Leinard went to Galion, Ohio, where he found employment as clerk in the office of the su- perintendent of the Erie Railroad. A little later he supplemented his early education by attending night classes and learning the art of stenography. After a year he was trans- ferred by the Erie Railway Company to Akron, where he worked as night clerk two months, then on the day force, and was ad- vanced from file clerk to bill clerk and later to chief rate and route clerk. During a sixty days' leave of absence Mr. Leinard went out to Denver and on his return stopped at Cleve- land and applied to the U. S. Telephone Com- pany for a position. After that he went on back to Akron and resumed his old place with the railroad company, but at the end of a month was offered and accepted work as a timekeeper for the U. S. Telephone Company in Cleveland.

Since his subsequent experience has been almost entirely in the telephone business it is proper to indicate the date of accepting this position. It was January 1, 1906. Two months later he was made clerk in the purchasing department, eight months later became pur- chasing agent. About that time the U. S. Telephone Company, a long distance service, was consolidated with the Cuyahoga. Tele- phone Company. Under the consolidation he became chief clerk to the general auditor. Four months later he was made purchasing agent of the U. S. and Cuyahoga properties. When these companies were each given a dis- tinet organization, he continued his services with the Cuyahoga Company as purchasing agent until 1910. In February of that year he was made treasurer and two years later secretary. In July, 1914, the Cuyahoga Tele- phone Company became the Ohio State Tele- phone Company. In this new and larger or- ganization Mr. Leinard was made assistant treasurer and commercial superintendent, in charge of the accounting and commercial de- partments. Then on May 1, 1917, he was

made Cleveland manager and that is his work at present, though with a man of his ability future changes for the better are a practical certainty.

Mr. Leinard has made himself well known in Cleveland business and social circles. For the last eight or nine years he has been man- ager of the Electric Building, in which are the headquarters of the Ohio State Telephone Company. He is a member of the Cleveland Athletic Club, the Cleveland Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, is on the execu- tive committee of the Wholesale Merchants and Manufacturers Board, a member of the Civic League, the West Side Chamber of In- dustry, the Cleveland Advertising Club, and has been treasurer and is now a director of the Electric League of Cleveland. He is ac- tive in the Cleveland Automobile Club. Fra- ternally he is affiliated with Akron Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons; Cleveland Chap- ter, Royal Arch Masons; Cleveland Council, Royal and Select Masters; and is a member of Al Sirat Grotto.

Mr. Leinard married November 2, 1910, Margaret Wemm. Mrs. Leinard is a native of Youngstown, Ohio. They have one son, Charles Orville.

JOIN MCGRATH, assistant treasurer of the Eberhard Manufacturing Company of Cleve- land, has for a number of years been con- nected with this company, formerly in charge of its Cincinnati business but since 1906 at the home office and plant in Cleveland.

Mr. McGrath was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 9, 1861, and represents some old and prominent names in that city and in other colonial lines in American his- tory. He is a son of Dr. John M. and Eliza C. (Shinn) McGrath. The McGraths came from Newton-Stewart, County Tyrone, Ire- land. His grandfather, Robert H. MeGrath, was the founder of this branch of the family in America and settled in Philadelphia about 1821. He died there in 1874. He was a dentist by profession and also a surgeon, be- ing a regular graduate of the Jefferson Med- ical College. Through his mother, Eliza C. Shinn, Mr. McGrath is descended from sev- eral other interesting lines. The Shinns went originally from Scotland into England, and John Shinn landed at Burlington, New Jer- sey, then known as Bridlington, as early as 1698. A collateral branch of the Shinn fam- ily were the Stocktons. Mr. McGrath is di- rectly descended from Richard Stockton, who

S. Williamson

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was great-grandfather of the Stockton signer of the Declaration of Independence. His mother's mother was descended from Gov- ernor Thomas Mayhew of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Altogether Mr. MeGrath has eleven colonial ancestors who were men of more than ordinary prominence.

Dr. John M. MeGrath was a surgeon. He lived all his life in Philadelphia and was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, both in the academic and medical depart- ments. In the Civil war he was surgeon of the Seventy-cighth Pennsylvania Infantry and afterwards was brigade surgeon of the Sev- enth Brigade, commanded by General Negley in General Thomas' Corps. He was a charter member of the George G. Meade Post of the Grand Army at Philadelphia and also a mem- ber of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. He was strictly an old-line republican in poli- ties and a member of the Episcopal Church. He was born at Philadelphia July 20, 1834, and died in that city August 21, 1905. Eliza C. Shinn was born at Haddonfield, New Jer- sey, December 20, 1836, and is now living with her son in Cleveland at the age of eighty- two. She was the mother of two children, John and Charles S. The latter died at the age of four years.

Mr. John McGrath graduated in 1877 from the Protestant Episcopal Academy of Phila- delphia and soon afterwards took up an ac- tive business career. For several years he traveled all over the west as salesman for a Philadelphia house. He has been connected with the Eberhard Manufacturing Company of Cleveland since January 1, 1888, having re- cently rounded out a service of thirty years. For a time he had charge of the sales office of the company at Cincinnati, but in 1906 came to Cleveland to live as assistant to the vice president, and since September 1914, has been assistant treasurer of the company. The Eberhard Manufacturing Company is one of the larger industries of Cleveland, makers of saddlery and carriage hardwarc. Mrs. Mc- Grath is also a director of the Cleveland Tan- ning Company.

Ilis participation in public affairs came chiefly during his residence at Wyoming in Hamilton County, Ohio. He served several years as member and president of the vil- lage council there and for five years was trustees of Springfield Township in Hamil- ton County. He is a republican voter, is past master of Wyoming Lodge No. 186, Free and Accepted Masons, and a member of Wyoming

Chapter No. 146, Royal Arch Masons, and Cleveland Council No. 36, Royal and Selcet Masters. Mr. McGrath is deputy governor of the State of Ohio for the Society of thic Colonial Wars.

He and his family reside at 2131 Adelbert Road. He married at Hamilton, Ohio, No- vember 16, 1892, Miss Jane Hargitt, dauglı- ter of Jarvis and Anna (Waldron) Har- gitt. Her father was a farm owner and eoun- ty official of Butler County, Ohio. Both her parents are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. McGrath had four children : John Champney, who was born July 20, 1894, and died No- vember 1, 1911, at the age of seventeen; Jer- vis Hargitt, born August 5, 1895, died Jnne 14, 1897 ; Robert Hargitt, born May 28, 1901, a student in the University School of Cleve- land; and Dorothy Anne, born July 9, 1903, attending the Laurel School of Cleveland.

SAMUEL WILLIAMSON was from 1866 until his death on January 14, 1884, president of the Society for Savings. One of the oldest as well as one of the largest financial institu- tions of the Middle West, a service of eighteen years as its president would of itself consti- tute an achievement that would place a man high in the dignities and honors of the busi- ness world. Samuel Williamson at the time of his death was the oldest living resident of Cleveland, had gained many honors as a lawyer and public official and the sixteen story Williamson Building seems an appropriate monument to a man of so many substantial characteristics.

He was born in Crawford County, Pennsyl- vania, March 16, 1808, and was seventy-six years of age at the time of his death. He was the oldest son of Samuel Williamson, Sr., a native of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who settled in Crawford County along the western frontier about 1800. In Crawford County he married Isabella McQueen, and they became the parents of seven children. On May 10, 1810, the Williamson family came to Cleveland, where the family have lived more than a century. In that time the successive generations have participated in many of those activities which have created one of the best of American cities as well as one of the largest. Samuel Williamson, Sr., and his brother were engaged in the business of tanning and curry- ing until his death in September, 1834. He was a man of enterprise and public spirit, highly esteemed as a citizen, liberal in politics and for many years justice of the peace and

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associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

Two years old when he came with the family to Cleveland, the late Samuel Williamson was educated in public schools of a primitive type. It is said that he was probably the first Cleve- land youth to go away to college. In 1826 he entered Jefferson College in Washington County, Pennsylvania, from which he grad- uated in 1829. The following two years he read law in the office of Judge Andrews at Cleveland, being admitted to the bar in 1832. For two years he was associated in practice with Leonard Case. In 1834 he was elected auditor of Cuyahoga County and filled that office for eight years. For thirty years, with few interruptions, he was continuously en- gaged in the practice of law and most of that time in partnership with A. G. Riddle. In 1872 he gave up the arduous labors of his profession and thereafter gave much of his personal attention to the affairs of the Society for Savings.

He was a type of man for whom public office meant a sacrifice and merely an oppor- tunity conscientiously to serve the public wel- fare. In 1850 he was chosen to represent the county in the Legislature. In 1859-60 he was a member of the Board of Equalization, and in 1862 was elected to the State Senate, where he served two terms, being in the Legislature during the latter part of the war. He was also a member of the city council and on the board of education. For two years he held the office of prosecuting attorney. He was iden- tified with some of the pioneer railways of the Middle West, being a director and at one time vice president and for many years at- torney of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway. Of his business activities lie doubtless derived the greatest satisfaction from his presidency of the Society for Savings from 1866 to 1884, an office which brought him into association with some of the greatest financiers and business men of Cleve- land.

The record of his life thus briefly told con- tains hardly a hint of the answer as to what manner of man he was, of his public and private character, and how it came about that so large a part of the public thoroughly re- posed their confidence and trust in him, both as a lawyer and business man. Even his close friends found it difficult really to know him and properly appraise his true worth. His life was deep as well as broad, and for that reason some of the talents and forces which he exemplified deserve more attention and

have greater value to the present generation than the mere catalog of his life routine.

If for no other reason he was an exceedingly fortunate man because of the friendships he made and the type of men who reposed their confidence in him during his life and sought as best they could to express their apprecia- tion after his death. It is not possible in this sketch to note the many tributes paid to his memory beyond the quotation of a few paragraphs that will serve to illustrate and define his nature and character. As to the broader elements and features of his experi- ence, the most concise tribute was that of Judge Rufus P. Ranney, who said :

"In many respects Mr. Williamson was a very extraordinary man. He was very ex- traordinary in the extent of his practical ac- quirements, derived from experience; very extraordinary in his temperament, character and persistent fidelity to duty. He had lived on this very spot seventy-four of the seventy- six years of his life. He had seen this place a mere hamlet of a few hundred inhabitants. He had seen generations come and go, until there was rolled up upon the ground that was surrounded by a wilderness in his childhood a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants. I doubt if there is a man living who has so complete and perfect a knowledge of the growth of the city and of the men who have lived and played their parts in it as had Mr. Williamson.

"He came to the Bar with no extraordinary or adventitious circumstances to give eclat or introduce him prominently before the public. He possessed none of those elements of genius and oratory which are sometimes used to ob- tain temporary reputations at least, and ele- vate men to high positions. His strength con- sisted in the fact that from the beginning to the end he brought to the discharge of duty labor, integrity, industry and fidelity to all the great trusts that had been imposed upon him through a long life.

"Whether as a practicing lawyer, a county officer, a legislator, or finally, during the last years of his life, presiding over one of the largest institutions in our city, with immense responsibilities to the poor and those of small means, he has traveled through life without leaving a suspicion upon any man's mind that in the discharge of any of the duties which these places imposed he has not been faithful and honest to the utmost. It has this great teaching in it-this is the good of being here, and it is the lesson that should be laid to the

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heart of every young man who is starting out in the profession that fidelity, honesty, in- tegrity and industry will lead to that perma- ment elevation in public estimation, which is worth a thousand times more than all those evanescent causes which sometimes make men shine in community. That is the lesson, and no man's example can be more safely pre- sented to the young to follow than that of Mr. Williamson."

But the interpretation of the man himself, as due through his many varied relationships with life, is best revealed in the words of his old law partner, A. G. Riddle. "As Samuel Williamson the lawyer" Mr. Riddle says : "In dealing with a case his sole object was to get at the right of it-if a moral question was involved, as there is more seldom than the world supposes-when there was that was the one thing to be advanced. His client could have no interest to be furthered at the expense of a moral right. No other consideration was permitted to influence him.

"His mastery of the law was very complete. He was learned in the good sense of the term. He never discussed a legal proposition without lighting up its focal point, doing it in the fewest, most direct words. He was reluctant to appear before juries, where his rare in- tegrity made him a real power. He had a good deal more. In nothing was he more mis- judged by the average man than in his ability as an advocate. He rarely spoke more than thirty or forty minutes before juries, in that time saying all that really had any right to be said, and this was in the cleanest and best manner, a silver thread going directly to the heart of the matter and leading out to a just conclusion ; his language simple, direct, never lacking, manner earnest, sincere, sometimes warm, the fewest, best words. The course of his speech was narrow, not overflowing, was direct, limpid, without amplification or illus- tration ; no figures, no repetition, no dwelling upon, everything brought out clearly and in logical order, and with the last word of real light he sat down; not an address for the average jury, but for the highest intelligence; to the few of the bar, the trained court, ad- mirable, yet not always appreciated by then at its just value.

"His arguments to the court were always happy, often strong and in the terseness of language and legal logic beautiful. The real point was made clear, its decisive character shown and books and cases that only

approached it had no part in his argument. His proper place was upon the bench, his mind eminently judicial, with a controlling moral bias for the right."

"There never was a man, however," de- clares Mr. Riddle, "so imperfectly known to the mass of men among whom he lived save on the moral side of his nature and character. It was not that he was secretive; never was a man more frank and open to those who would quietly pursue and cultivate him in the fastnesses, so to say, of his rich, retiring nature. Modest to diffidence, his accurate mind must have confided in its own conclu- sions, which, though cautious, were rapidly made. The mind was quick, though pru- dent, from nature not assertive.

"A good reader of men whose confidence he easily gained, it never occurred to him to use them for purposes of his own. Indeed, he never had a selfish purpose to be served. Not revealing himself as many do, seeming not to be conscious that he had qualities that men would like to know, nor yet hiding himself as having nothing he would conceal. It was often said to me by the late Judge Andrews, as some ray of the inner man shot forth, 'You and I are the only ones who fully know Wil- liamson.'

"To the world he was the unassertive, silent, retiring man, whose one revealed quality of absolute integrity commended him-that and his kindness. For the rest he had credit for rare good sense, sagacious judgment, was steady, unambitious, cold.

"To the very few his was the gentlest, ten- derest spirit that ever animated a man's form, pure and lofty, an intellect of the first order. In its power of discrimination remarkable, its grasp of a subject secure, its conclusions as nearly infallible as man's may be; withal there was a keen, playful sense of the ludicrous side of men and things which no man saw quicker or enjoyed more heartily, and if he did not puncture men's wind-bags it was from the rare kindness of his nature, no man saw them quicker or appreciated them more en- tirely."

Samuel . Williamson had a splendid reli- gious character and experience. While he never made a profession of religion, he was constant in attendance and devotion to Sab- bath worship in the Old Stone church, and for twenty-three years was president of the First Presbyterian Church Society. In 1843 he married Mary E. Tisdale, of Utica, New York,

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who survived him with three sons: Judge Samuel E. Williamson; George T. William- son ; and James D. Williamson.

In the words of Judge Ranney, previously quoted, "I know of no man of whom it may be more justly and rightfully said that he performed his whole duty, he ran his race successfully and properly, and died as he had lived, an honest man."

JUDGE SAMUEL E. WILLIAMSON. With many of the abilities and all of the moral strengtli and character of his honored father as an inheritance, Samuel Eladsit Williamson achieved that unusual distinction of re-enforc- ing and improving upon the abundance of qualities and virtues with which he began life, so that at the time of his death he might easily and justly have been counted among any group however exclusive that represented the best learning and power of the American bar.

He was born in Cleveland April 19, 1844, and died February 21, 1903. He graduated from Western Reserve College in 1864, studied law with his father, and finished his course in the Harvard Law School in 1866. In 1880 he was elected to the Common Pleas Bench, but resigned in September, 1882, to become general counsel for the Nickel Plate Railroad. In 1898 he was promoted to general counsel for the New York Central Railroad, and con- tinued as head of the legal department of one of the greatest of American railroad systems until his death. He always retained his home in Cleveland, and one of the distinguishing features of his life was his great loyalty to and affection for the city of his birth. He was one of the founders of the University School of Cleveland, was a trustee of Adel- bert College and Western Reserve University, for many years a trustee of the Society for Savings and of the Old Stone Presbyterian Church. As was true of his honored father, he was frequently sought as administrator and executor of large estates. In 1878 he married Miss Mary Peabody Marsh of New Haven, Connecticut, who died in 1881, leaving twin daughters, Mary and Ethel. In 1884 Judge Williamson married Miss Harriet W. Brown of East Windsor, Connecticut, and by that wife was the father of a son Samuel B. Wil- liamson.

It was in keeping with his high character as a great American lawyer that men from all over the nation paid tribute to him at the

time of his death. At a meeting of the Cleve- land Bar Association its chairman, Judge John C. Hale, briefly reviewed his career as follows :

"He came to the bar in 1867, thoroughly equipped by his intellectual endowment and his accurate knowledge of the law. His first. work at the bar was that of a general practi- tioner in this city, where he soon attained a marked success. His professional work during the first years of his practice was such as to place him in the ranks of the good lawyers of the state. His unswerving integrity, his power of analysis, with the intuitive ability to judge the character of men, and the confi- dence he always inspired in both court and jury, made him a formidable trial lawyer, and as a safe and wise counselor he had no su- perior. No client's cause was ever neglected by him or poorly represented. It was my pleasure on many occasions to listen to his arguments in cases involving important ques- tions of law, and to observe his methods and his power. After more than ten years at the bar he was selected as one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas of this county. No better man ever occupied the bench of that court. His knowledge of the law, his logical and discriminating mind, his innate love of . justice fitted him for, and he was in fact, an ideal judge. At the close of two years he left the bench to assume other and very important duties which were to be entrusted to him. In- creasing demands upon his professional serv- ices followed. Although much of his time was employed in his duties as general counsel for one of the great railroads of the country he still found time for general practice and was often engaged in important litigation; and, more than that, he took the time to advise, counsel and assist, without compensation, many who turned to him in their troubles for aid. Step by step he advanced in his pro- fessional work, until during the last four years of his life he held and, except when disabled by sickness, fully performed the duties of a position second in importance to none in the country in the line of his profession. His entire professional work was performed with credit to himself and profit to his clients. He was self-reliant, and to this much of his suc- cess is due. He had, with entirely good reason, confidence in his own judgment. He reached conclusions by methods which rarely led him astray, and when his judgment was once

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A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 93

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