USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 11
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After leaving the army he resumed his work with the firm of Rose and Prentice, and subsequently the business was reorganized as the Cleveland Provision Company, with Mr. Christian as treasurer of the company. He held that office and was active in the company about twenty years, and still retains financial interests therein.
He has been a very extensive traveler, having visited the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Lake to the Gulf. Mr. Christian owns two orange groves in Florida, one at Vero and the other at St. Zephyr Hill. He has also traveled in Mexico and Canada, and in 1887 accompanied his father abroad. In 1911 and again in 1914 he and his daughter and also his sister traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, sailing on the Mediterranean, visited Spain, taking the Nile to Egypt. He and his daughter each had a kodak and have many interesting pictures of their journeys. Mr. Christian's home is on Scarboro Road amid pleasant surroundings. His summer home is in the country on elevated ground overlooking the river and about a mile and a half from Chagrin Falls.
Mr. Christian married Miss Eliza J. Worswick, who was born in Rhode Island, daughter of Jane Worswick. The one daughter of their marriage is Elizabeth B. Mr. Christian when about six years of age began attending the First Baptist Church Sunday School and at the age of twenty joined the church and has served it in different capacities, being deacon for several years. He is chaplain of army and navy posts of the Grand Army
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of the Republic and is also a member of the Early Settlers Association of Cuyahoga County.
MAURICE MASCHKE. As a resourceful attorney, member of one of the ablest law firms of Cleveland, the record of Maurice Maschke compares favorably with that of any member of the Cleveland bar. He practiced law in his native city over thirty years. What has made him best known in city and county and among powerful men in American politics and affairs for over a quarter of a century, has been his leadership and influence in the republican party.
He was born in Cleveland, October 16, 1868. Two years earlier, his parents, Joseph and Rose Maschke had come to Cleveland from Germany. The mother is still living. Joseph Maschke was for many years a retail grocery merchant. Maurice Maschke attended the city grammar and high schools. His parents furnished their sons splendid opportunities for a liberal education. Mr. Maschke prepared for college at Philips Exeter Academy in the East, and at Harvard University studied law and political economy, graduating in 1890. He came home to study law, and in 1892 was admitted to the Ohio bar. Early in his practice he became interested in title searching, and this work brought him in daily contact with the county recorder's office. In 1896, when his parents went abroad, while their son Alfred was completing his medical education, Maurice became a title searcher for the county recorder. For many years he has been an authority on title and law, and the bulk of his practice has been in litigation regard- ing property.
Outside of the law and politics, some of his other interests and diver- sions were recently described by a writer in the Plain Dealer: "Then there is the Maurice Maschke, Harvard '90, who has radical ideas about the modern stage, which he gets direct from the classic Greek drama. This Maurice Maschke is a grower of and authority on roses. He knows his Shakespeare by heart ; nay, he knows his Hauptmann and Sudermann, and Ibsen and Schnitzler by heart. Once, a partner of Carl T. Robertson of The Plain Dealer, he nearly captured the national whist championship. He knows Kant and Locke and Mill and Berkely and Hume and Nietzche and Marx, and wonders about the complex society man has evolved for him- self. He can discourse by the hour on the growth of England's political system. He thinks as much of Harvard as Heywood Broun, and his innate caution cannot stop his offering odds on the worst football team Harvard ever trotted out. He plays golf doggedly; if he can't go thirty- six holes without trimming his average he goes about in gloom and misery for two days."
His first practical experience in politics came in the spring of 1897, as supporter of a candidate for the office of county recorder. In the same year, he used his influence to help reelect Robert E. McKisson for mayor. He was a member of the McKisson faction in city politics, then in 1898 the fight occurred between the McKisson faction and that led by Mark Hanna. Thus, in his first years in politics, Mr. Maschke was unfriendly to the political fortunes of Senator Hanna. Later, he came to entertain a profound admiration for that Ohio business man in politics, and during the presidential campaign of 1920 he had the honor of presiding at a
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meeting to observe the birthday anniversary of Mark Hanna, and in in- troducing the late Judge Day as chief speaker, he said: "I think Mark Hanna was one of the biggest men from any point of view that this country has ever produced. He certainly did as much for the republican party as a party than any man whose name I can remember, and when we think of these times we are having now, what a pity it is he is not among us."
By 1900, Mr. Maschke had cultivated his influence so steadily that he was in absolute control of the republican party in eight wards of the city, including four wards in the downtown district, and four wards along Woodlawn Avenue, where his own home was. After the death of Senator Hanna he supported Theodore Burton as candidate for the United States Senate, and his work was largely responsible for making Mr. Burton's qualifications known throughout Ohio, leading up to his choice for the United States Senate in 1909. It was Mr. Maschke who after a careful study of the situation brought out Hermann Baehr, former county recorder as candidate for the office of mayor, and whose election brought the first defeat to the long continued power of Tom L. Johnson as the dominant figure in Cleveland municipal politics.
In the historic split in the republican party in 1912, Mr. Maschke favored the renomination of President Taft. Though the Roosevelt sup- porters gained a big victory in the primaries, early in that year, Mr. Maschke controlled the county convention, and to the surprise of all, the convention instructed for Taft, and it was the slight margin of power held in Cleveland and developed by Mr. Maschke, that the four Ohio delegates at large to the Chicago Convention were instructed for Mr. Taft.
Mr. Maschke has found his satisfaction in politics through the quiet but efficient exercise of his power in a party organization. He has held no important offices, and has never been a candidate. At the time of the fight just mentioned, he was collector of customs at Cleveland. Throughout his political career he has stood for party regularity and the two chief crimes are not keeping one's word, and bolting from the party.
After the disastrous republican defeat of 1912, a new man in republican politics found the favor of Mr. Maschke. This was Harry L. Davis, and Mr. Maschke introduced him in the campaign of 1913 as candidate for mayor and in 1915 Mr. Davis was victorious. He and Mr. Maschke had a hot political partnership for six years until after the election of Judge Day as governor in 1920. Mr. Davis was elected governor in spite of the fact that his home county did not give him a majority and conse- quently Mr. Maschke had no part in the Davis state administration.
When Senator Burton declined to become a candidate for reelection to the Senate in 1914, Mr. Maschke warmly espoused the suggestion that Warren G. Harding should receive the republican nomination in spite of the fact that Mr. Harding as candidate for governor in 1910 had made a very poor showing in Cuyahoga County, where the entire republican county ticket was elected. Then, in 1914, though the county returned a large democratic majority, Mr. Maschke had the satisfaction of seeing Harding lead the republican ticket by 15,000 votes. Then, in 1920, Mr. Maschke as leader of the County Republican Organization, enjoyed another triumph when Cuyahoga gave Mr. Harding 75,000 majority votes for president. He had become an active candidate for Mr. Harding for president in 1919,
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and fought for Harding in the pre-presidential primary against the big odds, and also at the Chicago Convention.
Mr. Maschke has been a member of the County Republican Central Committee for over twenty-five years, and from 1904 to 1912 was a member of the State Central Committee. He has known intimately and supported or opposed every leading citizen in Ohio of the last quarter century, in- cluding Presidents William McKinley and Warren G. Harding, United States Senators M. A. Hanna, Theodore E. Burton and Charles Dick, former governor and present ambassador to France, Myron T. Herrick, William H. Boyd, Harry L. Davis, and many others who have learned to regard Mr. Maschke as a most accomplished party leader, and one who has never tolerated disloyalty to the party ticket. His accomplishments have been due largely to alert watchfulness, and close study of his own and other political organizations. It is said that he has frequently been better informed as to democrats, reform and independent movements than the leaders in those movements themselves.
Mr. Maschke is a member of the Cleveland Bar Association, is affiliated with the Masons, Elks, and Knights of Pythias, and belongs to a large number of social clubs and civic organizations. He married Miss Minnie Rice of Cleveland. They have two children, Helen and Maurice, Jr.
LESTER EUGENE SIEMON, M. D., who has been engaged in the practice of his profession in the City of Cleveland since the year 1896, is one of Ohio's most prominent and distinguished representatives of the school of homeopathic medicine and surgery, has been influential in the educational work of his profession and has made valuable contributions to standard and periodical literature pertaining to the sciences of medicine and surgery. A significant mark of the professional prestige which is his, is that of his being at the time of this writing, in the autumn of 1923, the president of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Doctor Siemon was born at New Brighton, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December, 1867, and is a son of George F. and Sophia (Neely) Siemon, the former of whom was born and reared in Germany and the latter in the State of Pennsylvania. Adam Siemon, grandfather of the doctor, was one of the influential citizens of the historic old City of Frankfort-on-Main, Germany, where he served as a member of the Landwehr, and he was one of the gallant men who became actively identified with the German revolu- tion in the late '40s, his prominent association with this justified move- ment against despotic government having made him persona non grata in his native land, the governmental enmity which he thus incurred forced him to flee from Germany and to sacrifice his large properties in the land of his birth. Like many others who were prominently concerned in that Revolutionary uprising of 1848, he found hospice in the United States and established his home in Ross County, Ohio, he having been a resident of this state at the time of his death.
George F. Siemon received in his native land excellent educational advantages, and it was in the year 1855 that he came to the United States. He was engaged in business at New Brighton, Pennsylvania, where he continued his residence until 1876. In that year he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, and in this city he is now living retired from active business, a
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venerable citizen who here commands the high esteem of all who know him. The death of Mrs. Simeon occurred several years ago.
Doctor Siemon was a lad of nine years at the time when the family home was established in Cleveland, and here he profited by the advantages of the public schools, besides taking a course in stenography. Here he. was employed as a stenographer in the offices of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and later in the offices of the Standard Oil Company, his ability finally leading to his effective service as stenographic court re- porter in the local law courts. In the meanwhile he formulated definite plans for his future career, and in consonance with his ambition he finally entered the Cleveland University of Medicine, in which homeopathic institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1896 and with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has insistently kept in touch with the advances made in medical and surgical science, and his post-graduate work has included his attendance at leading clinics in the cities of New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. He has continuously made Cleveland the stage of his professional activities, and his professional clientage has long been one of representative order.
In 1902 Doctor Siemon became an instructor in the Cleveland Homeo- pathic Hospital College and from 1905 to 1914 he held the chair of and was head of the department of obstetrics in that institution. He was dean of this college faculty for some time.
In 1911 Doctor Siemon was appointed by Governor Harmon a mem- ber of the Ohio State Board of Medical Examination and Registration, his service in this capacity having continued until 1918. In 1908 he was elected president of the Ohio State Homeopathic Medical Society, in the affairs of which he continues an influential figure, he having given also several years of service as a member of its legislative committee. In the year 1923 there came to Doctor Siemon special distinction, in his election to the office of president of the American Institute of Homeopathy, and this honor confered by this national organization gives reflex distinction also to his home city and state. The Doctor has made valuable contribu- tions to the standard and periodical literature of his profession, and is at the present time editor in chief of the Central Journal of Homeopathy. He is a prominent member of the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical Society. He is affiliated with the Phi Upsilon Rho college fraternity, and in 1907-08 he was president of the supreme corpus, or national organization, of this fraternal order. The doctor has had neither time nor desire for political activity, but is aligned in the ranks of the democratic party, and is a loyal and progressive citizen and is a thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner.
ABRAHAM E. BERNSTEEN. The solid achievement credited to his career as a practicing attorney at Cleveland through a period of over twenty years were accorded special recognition in a public way when Mr. Bernsteen in 1923 was called to the office of United States District Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio by President Harding.
Mr. Bernsteen was born in Cleveland, February 3, 1878, third among the eight children of Morris and Henrietta (Meyers) Bernsteen. His parents were natives of Germany, where his father was born April 20, 1846, and his mother April 10, 1848. They came to America and settled
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in Cleveland nearly fifty years ago, and until he retired some ten or twelve years before his death Harris Bernsteen was engaged in business as a manufacturer. He was a prosperous business man and one of the highly esteemed citizens of Cleveland. He died in this city May 18, 1921, and is survived by his widow.
Abraham E. Bernsteen acquired a liberal education by consecutive at- tendance in school and college, beginning in the Mayflower Grammar School, and then in the Central High School where he graduated in 1894. He received his Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Adelbert College in 1898, and then entered the law school of Western Reserve University, graduating Bachelor of Laws in 1900. He was admitted to the Ohio bar and took up active practice at Cleveland in 1900, and in a few years had a clientage that placed him among the rising young individual lawyers of the city. When his brother M. L. Bernsteen graduated in 1906 he became junior member of the law firm of Bernsteen & Bernsteen. This firm has since handled a large general practice. President Harding appointed Mr. Bernsteen United States District attorney on March 3, 1923.
This has been his first important political office. In earlier years he was well satisfied to concentrate his time and energies upon his law prac- tice. However he has served on several local committees of the republican party. Mr. Bernsteen belongs to Forest City Lodge, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, Grotto Chapter, a member of the Knights of Pythias, and belongs to the Cleveland and Ohio Bar Association, the Cleve- land Chamber of Commerce, and the Tippecanoe, Western Reserve and City clubs.
BURTON BARD CHAPMAN, the president and general manager of the Webber Company, general contractors in the City of Cleveland, was born on North Bass Island, Ottawa County, Ohio, on the 30th of March, 1868, and is a son of Charles M. and Amanda (Bard) Chapman.
Charles M. Chapman was born at Sandusky, Ohio, in December, 1840, and his father, William K. Chapman, was born in Connecticut, a repre- sentative of a family that came from England to America in the Colonial period of our national history. Charles M. Chapman was for many years one of the prominent and successful contractors in the City of Sandusky, where he is now living retired. His wife was born in Lake County, this state, in 1842, and her death occurred in 1888. She was a daughter of James Bard, who was long a captain of vessels plying the Great Lakes and who was a descendant of a sterling old Connecticut colonial family of English origin.
The public schools of Sandusky afforded Burton B. Chapman his early education, which was supplemented by his attending the Ohio Normal School at Milan. As a youth he worked effectively in association with his father's contracting business, and thereafter he was for a number of years a sailor on the Great Lakes. While thus engaged in navigation service he established his home in Cleveland, and after retiring from the lakes he here became associated with the contracting business of B. T. Webber. When in 1904 the business was reorganized by the formation and incor- poration of the Webber Company, he became general manager of the con- cern, four years later having recorded his assumption also of the office of
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president of the company. This is now one of the large and important contracting concerns of the Ohio metropolis, with well equipped business plant and offices at 1609-23 West Twenty-fifth Street. Mr. Chapman is also a director of the City Investment Company. He is an active and valued member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Cham- ber of Industry, holds membership in the Cleveland Yacht Club and the Cleveland Athletic Club, and in the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has completed the circle of each the York and the Scottish Rites, in the latter of which he has received the thirty-second degree, besides being a noble of Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Chapman wedded Miss Flo A. Ryan, who was born at Zanesville, Ohio, a daughter of the late John F. and Anelia (North) Ryan, both of whom were born in Muskingum County. this state. Mr. and Mrs. Chap- man have one daughter, Ruth Iva, and the attractive family home is at Avon Lake, Stop 70 on the Lake Shore Electric Railway line.
HON. HARRY C. GAHN. Dr. Louis F. and Esther (Knight) Gahn are the parents of this distinguished Ohioan ; the former was born in Columbus, Ohio, January 15, 1849, and is a son of Conrad and Mary (Artz) Gahn. The Gahn family came originally from the Isle of Man, the largest tract of land in the Irish Sea, and therefore were once British subjects. Orig- inally the name was MacGahn, but the former part was dropped many years ago. At an early period they left the Isle of Man and located in Hesse, Germany, where both Conrad and his wife were born. There they grew to maturity, received the usual education, were married and soon afterward came to the United States, continuing eastward to Ohio, locating first in Cleveland for a short time, but finally settling on a farm in Sandusky County. Not contented with his occupation he at last rented his farm, and having made special study for that purpose entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for a period of fifty years was a circuit rider of that denomination. When old age approached he retired from the ministry and went back to his farm which he had retained and which in reality had been his home from the start.
In early life Dr. Louis F. Gahn attended the University of Michigan, but in order to graduate from a state college entered the Cincinnati Medical College from which he graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1874. His early training under the guidance of his illustrious father was thorough and efficient. He began the practice of his profession at Elmore, Ohio, and has thus been engaged ever since. During his early practice he covered all the section of country for many miles in and around Elmore and was obliged to keep two horses for riding and driving and was so steadily employed that he sometimes was compelled to overwork his horses in emergency calls for medical service. He is a member of the Toledo and the Ohio State Medical societies and is a member of the Odd Fellows Fraternity.
His wife, Esther Knight, was born at Port Clinton, Ohio, June 19, 1850, and is the daughter of Immer and Eliza (Marion) Knight. It is claimed and is probably true that the Knights are members of the same Knight family that came over in the Mayflower. Three brothers of that name came over at a very early date, one remaining in New England, one going to
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the Southern seaboard and the other locating in Pennsylvania. From the latter state came Immer, one of the descendants of the Pennsylvania branch, who settled at Port Clinton, Ottawa County, where for many years he followed the occupation of cabinetmaker, mostly by hand. He died in mid- life of pneumonia. His wife, Eliza, lived to be 93 years of age.
Hon. Harry C. Gahn grew up at Elmore and graduated there from the high school in 1897. Securing a certificate he taught school for three years, but in the fall of 1901 entered the literary department of the University of Michigan and there studied for one year when he entered the law depart- ment of the same university, completed the full course and was graduated in 1904 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. The same year he was admitted to the bars of both Michigan and Ohio. He began the practice in Cleveland as an associate of the old law firm of Burton and Dake. He is now authorized to practice in all the courts of the United States. On March 6, 1923, on motion of Hon. Theodore E. Burton, he was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court. As a lawyer who makes a hot fight for the interests of his clients he has attained a high reputation.
But his prominence and activity are not confined to the legal world. In 1909 he was elected a member of the Cleveland City Council and served as such continuously until 1921, when he resigned to take his seat in Congress. During 1918-19 he was president of the city council, and while thus serving was a member and secretary of the Cleveland River and Harbor Commis- sion, first under the appointment of Mayor Herman Baehr and then under Mayor Newton D. Baker. In November, 1920, after the stirring and strenuous campaign of that eventful year, he was elected to Congress on the republican ticket from the Twenty-first Ohio District. He has made his mark in Congress as well as in legal and municipal affairs. He served on the committees of Merchant Marine and War Claims. In 1923 he retired from Congress and resumed the practice of law in Cleveland.
He is a Mason and a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Western Reserve Republican Club and the City Club. On June 16, 1917, he married Grace Gerrard of Warren, Ohio, the daughter of Daniel W. and Mary J. (Culver) Gerrard.
JOHN HENRY WIGMAN, who was a resident of Cleveland from the time of his birth, nearly eighty years ago, had a long record of business activity to his credit. For many years he was a locomotive engineer, later a manu- facturer, and had been retired for thirty-four years. His demise occurred on May 9, 1924.
He was born in Cleveland, July 8, 1845. His father, John B. Wigman, a native of Germany, where he acquired a common school education, left home at the age of fourteen and came to America. He arrived in this country about 1830, and soon located in Cleveland, which was a small city without railroads and with connection with the outside world only by boat on the Great Lakes and the highways that extended back to the country. Soon afterward he made a trip to New Orleans by stage coach and the Mississippi River. On returning to Cleveland he became an apprentice bricklayer, and from work at his trade developed a business as a building contractor. He was the contractor who erected the first brick warehouse on the river, and he was the contractor for the Academy
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