A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 96

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 96

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

J. Howard Rust was graduated from the Wellington High School in 1893 at the age of eighteen, and his business career began immediately after leaving off his studies. For eighteen months he was a clerk in the Home Savings Bank of Wellington, and was then promoted to cashier, being then the youngest bank cashier in the State of Ohio. He filled that office two years, and then came to Cleveland, where in 1899 he became teller in the Cleveland Trust Company and during the two years with that company was em- ployed in all departments, gaining an inval- uable experience. His next connection was with the Baker Motor Vehicle Company, at first in the general offices and later as pro- duction superintendent. After that he was

500

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

assistant superintendent with the White Com- pany, automobile manufacturers, four years, and was then called to New York City as secretary and treasurer of the Tubes Realty and Terminal Company. Mr. Rust spent three and a half years in New York, returning to Cleveland in 1913, where he took up the real estate business independently with offices in the Williamson Building. With all his varied experience in manufacturing, bank- ing and general commercial lines, a better choice of a man for the investment depart- ment of such a company as Merrill, Lynch & Company could hardly have been made than in the person of Mr. Rust. He entered upon his new duties in June, 1917.

Mr. Rust is a republican in politics, is a member of the Union Club, and his chief hobby is war gardening. He and his family reside at 1837 Grasmere in East Cleveland.

October 3, 1914, at Wellington he married Miss Evelyn C. Gibbs of Sewickly, Pennsyl- vania. Her parents Willard M. and Ellen (Rexford) Gibbs are both now deceased, her father having died at Wellington and her mother in New York City. The Gibbs family spent their summers in Wellington, Ohio. The father was for many years at the head of the T. H. Nevin Company, pioneer manu- facturers of prepared paints at Pittsburgh and Sewickly, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Rust was born at Sewickly, was educated there in the grammar and high schools, and also attended the School of Oratory and Elocution at Bos- ton. Mr. and Mrs. Rust have two children : Virginia Louise and Walter B., the daughter a native of Cleveland and the son of New York City.

MARTIN SNIDER, the eldest son of Abijah and Martha Snider, was born in Dayton, Ohio, August 16th, 1846, and died in Cleveland, Ohio, January 1st, 1918.

After a course in the public schools and the Dayton Business College, he gave his entire attention to his father's timber and cooper- age business. Early in his career the business became of great importance due to the phe- nomenal growth of the oil industry. The in- creased demand for products of this factory necessitated the Snider's removal, first to Wapakoneta, Ohio, in 1868 and from there to Cleveland in 1871, where they had built, what was for those times, an extensive plant.

By 1878, dependable and sufficient cooper-

age had become so essential to the Standard Oil Company's success in the transportation of oil, that they recognizing Mr. Snider's un- usual knowledge and ability, invited him to sell his business to, and become associated with them. This he did, becoming at once manager of their cooperage department.

This became Mr. Snider's life work as he remained the executive head of that branch of the Standard Oil Company business, until his retirement on August 16th, 1916.

During Mr. Snider's residence of nearly fifty years in Cleveland he was identified with many of its business and civic interests. He was particularly interested, however, in The Guarantee Title and Trust Company, of which he was at one time president, The Cleveland Trust Co., of which he was a director for many years, and the Riverside Cemetery, of which he was treasurer.

He was a member of The Union and May- field Clubs of Cleveland, The Castalia Sport- ing Club, and the Ohio Society of New York.

VERY REV. JAMES AUGUSTINE MCFADDEN. It is indeed a highly responsible and most distinguished position held by this brilliant young priest of the Catholic Church in his capacity as rector and president of St. Mary's Theological Seminary at Cleveland.

A large number of the priests in the Cen- tral West acknowledge St. Mary's as the source of their theological training. It is one of the oldest schools in the Middle West, hav- ing been established in 1849 by Bishop Ama- deus Rapp, first bishop of Cleveland. Since then for a period of seventy years it has been the home and training place of the priests of the diocese of Cleveland, and is a school dignified by age, tradition, and by the fine character of its officers, teachers and alumni. The seminary is located at 1800 Lakeside Ave- nue. Besides Father McFadden as rector and president the other officers and instructors are : Rev. James M. McDonough, spiritual di- rector and professor of moral theology ; Rev. Edward A. Mooney, D. D., professor of dog- matic theology ; Rev. Edward F. Burke, pro- fessor of homiletics and history ; Rev. Richard E. Brennan, D. D., professor of canon law, liturgy and scripture ; Rev. Francis L. Cloves, director of ecclesiastical music. At present the seminary has an enrollment of fifty-five students preparing for the ministry, and the course is maintained for four years. The pre-

Martin Pride

501

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

liminary philosophical course leading up to the work of this institution is taken at St. Bernard's Seminary at Rochester, New York.

James Augustine McFadden is a native of Cleveland, born in this city December 24, 1880, son of Edward and Mary (Cavanaugh) McFadden. His father was born at Castle- bar, County Mayo, Ireland, in 1850, was reared in his native country, and in the '70s came to the United States and located at Cleveland. He was an honored merchant and business man of this city for many years, and died at his home 7615 LaGrange Avenue in October, 1914. Politically he affiliated with the democratic party. His wife Mary Cavan- augh is still living at the old home on La- Grange Avenue. She was born at Cleveland in 1861. They had a large family of children, briefly noted as follows : Edward, who died at the age of seven years; Rev. James A .; Wil- liam, who died aged three years; Mary, who died at the age of twenty-four; John, who has his father's grocery store in Cleveland; Cath- erine, wife of Joseph H. McGraw, in the wool business and residing at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania ; Helen, living at home with her mother ; Lucy, wife of Joseph Lamb of One Hundred Seventh Street, Cleveland ; Gertrude, a grad- uate of Cleveland High School and Normal School and now teacher in the city public schools; Genevieve, at home; Margaret, a stu- dent in Notre Dame Academy ; and Geraldine, a student in St. Agnes School. In the family there is also an adopted son, Edward, who is also attending St. Agnes Parochial School.

Father McFadden was educated in Cleve- land schools including St. John's Cathedral and Holy Name School, following which he took the classical course at St. Ignatius Col- lege five years and pursned both the philo- sophical and theological courses of St. Mary's Seminary for six years. He was ordained a priest June 17, 1905, and said his first mass at Holy Name Church, while his first regular assignment was as assistant in St. Agnes Church of Cleveland, where he remained nine years. He was then sent to Lorain to organ- ize a new parish, and in June, 1914, estab- lished St. Agnes Parish, of which he was for- mally installed as pastor. His old pastor in Cleveland, to whom he had served as assistant for many years, in making the principal ad- dress of the day at the laying of the corner stone of St. Agnes Church, in Elyria, on July 25, 1915, commended the young pastor in the following words: "I have a word of praise therefore to give to your young pastor, who

will come into this parish like a messenger of Israel, to cure the wounds of the afflicted and to bring God's message among men. I will say that the bishop has priests as good, but he has no better than your pastor. A word of commendation is due Father Me- Fadden. He came to this city a stranger and by hard work and untiring zeal he has organ- ized St. Agnes Parish. He has shown remark- able executive ability and has commanded the respect of all with whom he has come in con- tact. The future of St. Agnes Church is in his hands, and there is no reason to believe that he will not make a good account of his stewardship."

And all these words were justified and the hopes thus stated were realized, for when Father McFadden left Elyria to return to Cleveland and assume his present duties on September 13, 1917, his record with St. Agnes Church constituted a highly organized parish and the construction of a school, the comple- tion of the church building, and a most ac- ceptable organization for his successor.

Father McFadden is member of the Cham- ber of Commerce of Elyria and also belongs to the Elyria Council of the Knights of Co- lumbus.

JOHN H. KIRKPATRICK, secretary and treas- urer of the Kenny Kirk Motor Sales Com- pany at 8920 Euclid Avenue, is a Cleveland man of wide mechanical and business experi- ence, and has some interesting associations with the automobile industry and he had charge of the first garage opened in the city, a fact which serves to call attention to the comparative brief time in which automobiles have figured as an intimate part of city bnsi- ness institutions. While garages are now com- mon in practically every district of the city, it is necessary to go back only about fifteen years to find the pioneer garage of Cleveland and one of the first establishments of its kind in the Middle West.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is a native of Ohio, and was born at Steubenville September 24, 1869. His full Christian name is John Hunter. His father John Kirkpatrick was born at London- derry, Ireland, in 1825, was reared and mar- ried in the old country where he learned the trade of woodworker and carpenter. He mar- ried Annie Hunter, who was born in London- derry in 1836. In 1850 John Kirkpatrick came to the United States and located at Steubenville, where he followed his trade and became connected with what is now the Penn-

502

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

sylvania Railroad Company. He was in the service of the railroad as a woodworker and carpenter for forty-five years, having removed to Columbus in 1885. · In 1902 he retired and lived at Cleveland until his death in 1907. He was a republican in politics and was affili- ated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows and the Knights of Pythias. From child- hood he was very devout and religious in the performance of his duties as a Presbyterian. At Columbus he did much church work and was one of the founders of the Broad Street Presbyterian Church and served as an elder for many years. His wife died in Columbus in 1902. A brief record of their children is as follows: Annie, who died on the Atlantic Ocean while her parents were coming to America at the age of one year; James B., a machinist who died at Cleveland at the age of forty-seven ; Thomas, a stone cutter who died at Steubenville aged forty-two; Hannah, who died unmarried at Columbus aged twenty- four; Annie, who was also twenty-four when she died at Columbus; Madge, who died aged twenty-seven unmarried at Columbus; John Hunter; Hattie, wife of F. C. Blake, ticket receiver for the Pennsylvania Railway Com- pany at Cleveland; Kessey, who died at Co- lumbus aged seventeen ; and William, who is a traveling shoe salesman and resides at Co- lumbus.

John H. Kirkpatrick graduated from the high school at Steubenville in 1887 and then joined his parents in their home at Columbus. In the fall of the same year he left Columbus and going to Springfield, Missouri, entered the shops and learned the machinist's trade. In 1891, having finished his apprenticeship, he became a real journeyman and for experi- ence traveled from place to place all over the Western and Southern states.

Mr. Kirkpatrick has been a resident of Cleveland since 1897. After some other work at his trade he became connected with the Chisholm-Moore Company in 1898 and spent two years in their experimental department. In 1901 he joined the F. B. Stearns Automo- hile Company and was its assistant superin- tendent until the fall of 1902. It was at the latter date that Mr. Kirkpatrick took charge of the first garage at Cleveland. This garage was located in the old C. A. C. Building on Euclid Avenue opposite East Twelfth Street. The building and garage were owned by Ralph Owens, who all authorities agree was the real pioneer automobile man in Cleveland. Mr. Kirkpatrick continued to follow the

garage business with varied concerns until 1911. In July of that year he and A. R. Davis opened what was afterwards known as the A. R. Davis Motor Company, now sit- uated at 2020 Euclid Avenue. Mr. Kirkpat- rick was secretary and treasurer of the firm until October, 1916, when the business was re- organized under the name of the Studebaker Sales Company of Ohio, a change brought about because of the assignment of a much larger territory to the company. Mr. Kirk- patrick remained as general supervisor of the business until February, 1918, when he and Mr. John J. Kenny opened the Kenny-Kirk Motor Sales Company at 8920 Euclid Avenue. Mr. Kirkpatrick is secretary and treasurer of the organization, which does a general garage business and also acts as distributors for the Nash Motor cars.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is a republican, a member of the Baptist Church, of the Cleveland Ath- letic Club, and the Cleveland Automobile Club, and in Masonry has affiliations with Woodward Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, McKinley . Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, Coeur de Leon Commandery, Knights Tem- plar, Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also affiliated with Wade Park Tent of the Knights of the Maccabees.

His home is at 8109 Whitethorn Avenue. He married at Seville, Ohio, in 1899, Miss Ada Pring, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Pring both now deceased. Her father came from England and for many years was a ma- chinist at Cleveland.

W. D. B. ALEXANDER. The subject of our sketch started life like the majority of Amer- icans who have achieved success, without the influence of money or position.

Something over thirty years ago, before the advent of the telephone Mr. Alexander had acquired the art of telegraphy, which knowledge he was using to communicate be- tween a down town office and the out-lying yards of a coal company.

He was born in Cleveland August 21, 1858, the son of David Brown and Frances (Par- nell) Alexander.

His father was a native of Pennsylvania, but in early life came to Cleveland where he was known as a car builder. He was also a member of the old volunteer fire department, of that branch of service known as "The Red Jackets." He was married in Cleveland in early manhood to Frances Parnell, who was

WIT atypandy

503

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

of British birth, her home being in Devon- shire, England. Both parents died compara- tively young, and were laid to rest in Wood- land Cemetery.

Mr. Alexander obtained his education in Cleveland Public Schools, and as above noted, started in life as a telegraph operator. Some three years after, he took a position with the Union Steel Screw Company, corner of Payne Avenue and E. Fortieth Street. His con- nection with that company in various capac- ities gave him the opportunity to develop his talents as a manufacturer. After thirteen years, during which time he made many friends who had confidence in his ability and integrity, he organized in the year 1889, The National Screw & Tack Company and was its first secretary. Within a few years, he was elected president and remains so at the present writing. The phenomenal success of this company is well known. A few years ago, the Union Steel Screw Company was ab- sorbed by The National Screw & Tack Com- pany, thus the institution in which he started in a humble capacity came under his execu- tive control.

Mr. Alexander has had a wide experience as an executive of several other successful Cleveland industries; notably The National Acme Company, being its president from its inception until April, 1918, since that time has been chairman of the board. He is also president of the following institutions: The Adams Bagnall , Electric Company, The Cleveland Bolt and Manufacturing Co., The Cleveland Motorcycle Manufacturing Com- pany.

Nor are these all, for in banking circles he is active, being director of the Cleveland Trust Company and The First National Bank.

Neither does he omit giving his share of time to the building up of a still greater Cleveland, being director of St. Luke's Hos- pital, trustee of Case School of Applied Science and trustee of Calvary Church.

Mr. Alexander resides at 16900 South Park Boulevard. November 15, 1881, he married Miss Lida J. Graham of Cleveland, where she was born and educated. Her father, the late John Graham, was a veteran of the Civil war. Mrs. Alexander is a member of the Woman's City Club of Cleveland and the Cleveland Art Association. They have three children : Harold G., who is treasurer of The National Screw & Tack Company and of The Cleve- land Motorcycle Manufacturing Company ;

William Brownlee, general superintendent of The National Screw and Tack Company, and Mrs. William P. Foster, whose husband is associated with The National Screw & Tack Company.

STEWART HENRY CHISIIOLM. ln 1849 Cleveland had a population of eighteen thou- sand. In that year Stewart Henry Chisholm, a child of three years, came to the city with his parents. One of the greatest cities of America has grown up around him. In that city, especially in its industrial and business affairs, he has played a role of increasing activities and ability corresponding to the growth of the community. He is a real part of Cleveland as Cleveland is a part of him.

The work of many years can be briefly sum- marized and suggested by noting his impor- tant business connections as vice president of the American Steel & Wire Company, and of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, and as president of the H. P. Nail Company, the Chisholm-Moore Manufacturing Company, the Long Arm System Company, the American Grass Twine Company, and as a director and stockholder in a number of other corpora- tions.

Mr. Chisholm was born at Montreal, Can- ada, December 21, 1846, a son of the late Henry and Jean (Allen) Chisholm, to whom a separate sketch is dedicated on other pages. Mr. Chisholm as a boy attended the Cleveland public schools, and his first employment was with Stone, Chisholm & Jones, which later be- came the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company and finally as a branch of the United States Steel Company became the material plant of the American Steel & Wire Company. It is to this industry he has devoted practically half a century of his lifetime, and from it his con- nections have spread to numerous other cor- porations.

Mr. Chisholm is a member of the Union Club, Country Club and the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, and in politics is a repub- lican.

September 25, 1872, Mr. Chisholm married Miss Harriette Kelley, daughter of George A. and Martha J. (Eastland) Kelley of Kel- ley's Island, Ohio. She died December 30, 1895, the mother of three sons: Wilson K., a graduate of the Yale University with the class of 1898, now connected with a hardware supply company ; Clifton, who after two years in Yale University, became associated with the American Steel and Wire Company; and

504

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

Douglas, a graduate of Yale in 1909, in 1910 married Edith Collings, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Geo. E. Collings and she died in 1917 leaving two children Douglas and Mar- garet Jean. Douglas Chislom is in the bank- ing and bond business. January 23, 1900, Stewart H. Chisholm married Mrs. Henry P. Card, who died March 17, 1901.

HENRY CHISHOLM. Cleveland has been for so long and in so important a degree one of the great centers of the iron and steel indus- try of America, that the growth and power of that business could never be completely illustrated through the activities and achieve- ments of one man or even any group of men. But completeness and adequacy would suffer least and leave fewer big gaps and deficiencies in the story, if the detailed activities of the late Henry Chisholm were surveyed than probably would be true of any individual of the past. He was not only one of the big men of Cleveland but one of the big men in America in the iron and steel manufacture.

Like America's most famous ironmaster he was a native of Scotland, and came of a fam- ily not wealthy but self respecting and above the plane of real poverty.

He was born at Lochgelly in Fifeshire April 22, 1822. His father Stewart Chisholm was a mining contractor and died when his son Henry was ten years old. It was this tragedy in the family history which abbreviated Henry Chisholm's advantages in schools and forced him into the ranks of wage earners at a comparatively early age. His school days ended at the age of twelve and he was appren- ticed to a carpenter. His apprenticeship con- tinued five years, and as a journeyman he worked in Glasgow for three years. This brought him to the age of twenty, and in 1842 he crossed the ocean and settled at Mont- real. He had not a dollar when he arrived there, and at that time there were probably a million young men of his age, with equal or more abundant opportunities, and with the world turning as bright an aspect upon them as upon this young Scotchman. He was in Montreal seven years. Part of the time he worked at his trade for others, and finally got into business on his own account and developed a considerable organization for handling various building contracts up and down the St. Lawrence River.

When Henry Chisholm came to Cleveland he was twenty-eight years of age. That was in 1850. With a friend from Montreal he

built a breakwater for the Cleveland & Pitts- burg Railway Company at the lake terminus. It was a big contract, and he gave it his di- rect personal supervision for about three years. So thoroughly and well was it done, that other offers and a large volume of busi- ness was presented to him as soon as it was completed. Thereafter for several years his services were busily employed in building piers and docks along the lake front of Cleve- land.

By 1857 Henry Chisholm had amassed a modest fortune for those days of about twen- ty-five thousand dollars. That was only the foundation of his real success. He entered the ranks of iron manufacturers in 1857 and was one of the pioneers in establishing that industry in Cleveland. He was first a mem- ber of the firm Chisholm, Jones & Company, who established a rolling mill and manufac- tured railroad iron. Later the name was changed to Stone, Chisholm & Jones. That mill employed about a hundred fifty men and produced about fifty tons a day. The new rails were manufactured from iron from Lake Superior ores. To convert these ores into pig iron the firm erected a blast furnace at New- burg in 1859. It was the first blast furnace in that part of Ohio. The following year an- other furnace was erected, and the company modified its facilities for the manufacture of other classes of rolled iron besides rails.

From Cleveland as a center and with Mr. Chisholm as the organizing genius the busi- ness spread rapidly and steadily. A rolling mill was erected in Chicago. Blast furnaces were established in Indiana, and these blast furnaces were supplied with orcs from Lake Superior and Missouri. In 1864 Stone, Chis- holm & Jones organized the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, into which the partnership merged. The company soon bought the Lake Shore Rolling Mill.

One of the plumes of distinction accorded to Mr. Chisholm and his associates was the construction in 1865 of the second Bessemer steel works in the United States, and not only second but one of the most successful and perfect plants of its kind. This plant began with a capacity of twenty thousand tons an- nually. At the end of forty years its capacity was a hundred fifty thousand tons annually, and employment was furnished to about six thousand men, while the value of manufac- tured products was twelve million dollars. The mill manufactured steel rails in great quantity, but also many thousands of tons of

M Sparky

505

CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS

other classes of steel and for almost every conceivable purpose. In the course of time the company acquired its own mines in the Lake Superior district and at these mines something like three hundred men were em- ployed. In the course of Henry Chisholm's lifetime the value of the products of the dif- ferent establishments of the company in Cleve- land reached about fifteen million dollars an- nually.

In 1871 he organized the Union Rolling Mill Company of Chicago, an institution in- dependent of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Com- pany. He and Chicago partners erected a rolling mill at Decatur, Illinois. He lived to see the business of these concerns aggregate twenty-five million dollars annually and fur- nish employment to eight thousand men.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut, Part 96

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