USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 13
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No sooner had the new corporation begun operating than it commenced to expand in all directions and at surprising speed. Step by step, steadily yet rapidly, branch operating properties were purchased or secured in many of the leading coal centers of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, until at the present day fully twenty branch concerns are operating for the parent corporation, and the expansion is still sweeping onward and out- ward. At this time about 5,000 persons find satisfactory employment with this giant business concern and its active and ambitious branches, and mil- lions of frigid people are made comfortable by the warm mantle spread over homes.
It should be borne in mind by all lovers of individual prominence and proficiency that the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company is not the out- growth wholly of the increasing demand for coal in both homes and fac- tories. Competition is one of the important American measures aimed to control monopoly, and wise, able and sagacious business men are the leaders in competition. It was largely through the instrumentality and superiority of Francis M. Osborne that this corporation was able, in spite of compe- tition, to reach the summit of prosperity and success. But he was not alone in this important business venture. From its inception the corporation has been owned and controlled by four capable men: Francis M. Osborne, Abner Wallace Osborne, John G. Patterson and S. H. Robbins. All four have contributed their best business qualities and industrial wisdom to the success of this project. The result is neither astonishing nor marvelous, but is due almost wholly to the steady and progressive battle, fought day and night, to satisfy and deliver to the exacting public the best possible service and results. Such result is shown by the unusual and noteworthy progress and development of the organization and the multiplication of its active branches as the years have swept past.
Francis M. Osborne, or "Frank," as he was generally known, was born
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in Trumbull County, Ohio, on the 12th of March, 1854, the son of Abner Osborne. The father of Abner was a native of Virginia, who came West far back in pioneer times, when Trumbull County, a part of the Western Reserve, was almost a wilderness. There he encountered the usual perils which fell upon the pioneers : Savages, wild animals, border diseases, lack of food, discomforts of every description, poor pay for labor and hard- ships, awful highways, rude schools and few churches, few neighbors, etc. But he was equal to the emergency. He cleared his farm, cultivated the soil, grew large crops of grain, raised big herds of live stock, reared his children properly and saw that they received sound educations, became agreeable as a neighbor and prominent as a citizen, and is remembered as one of the most reputable of the sturdy pioneers.
His son Abner grew to manhood on his father's farm, and upon reach- ing maturity was fully competent to conduct any or all farming opera- tions. However, from early times he became interested in the business of testing out coal properties and problems, an important occupation in early days. He thus became well advised and posted on how to determine the value of land from the important standpoint of coaling operation. During his youth he received a good education in the country schools, and when a young man chose for his wife Miss Abigail Allison, by whom he became the father of seven children. Among the number was Joseph, who served as a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil war and finally lost his life at the Battle of Cynthiana, Kentucky. Francis M. and Abner W. were among the founders of the Pittsburgh Coal Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company of Cleveland, as described above. Another son, William. M., was named after the father of President Mckinley and served the United States as consul at London, dying there while serving in that capacity ; all of his family now reside abroad.
Francis M. Osborne passed his boyhood like the average children of his time, receiving a sound education and evincing at an early period marked business characteristics which disclosed themselves at a later period. He soon engaged in the coal business, and became a member of the Cleveland company of Osborne, Saeger & Company. When the Pittsburgh company was organized as the Pittsburgh Coal Company, he was one of its founders and was elected its first president, and mainly through his guidance and management it soon controlled about fifty subsidiary companies. In 1902 he was one of the founders of the present organization, and it was mainly through his hard work and close confinement attendant upon this organi- zation that he was at last forced to give up his work. He died on the 17th of July, 1911, but before his deplorable demise he, as president, made the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company one of the foremost and most suc- cessful in the whole country. But he was not wholly tied up to his business affairs. He was much interested in all human welfare projects and was one of the city's capable and respected citizens. President McKinley was his cousin, and soon after being elected President asked him: "Now, Frank, what can I do for you?" "Nothing," replied Mr. Osborne, and he meant what he said, because he did not care to leave his business for the uncertain- ties of office here or abroad, preferring industrial independence and local welfare to political distinction.
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Francis M. Osborne married Miss Dollie Morris, and to them were born ten children, as follows: Florence O., who married W. L. Robison ; Dorothy O., who married F. C. Mills, Jr .; Morris A., who died in 1906, when in his eighteenth year; William M., now secretary-treasurer of the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company ; Mildred O., now Mrs. Karl F. Bruch; Francis M., Jr .; Helen O., who became Mrs. Edward E. Bruch; Clarence H .; James M., and David A. The mother of this family resides in Cleveland ; nearly all of her children also reside here.
Since the year 1911, when Francis M. Osborne died, the presidency of the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company has devolved upon S. H. Rob- bins, who has been greatly assisted by three vice presidents : Abner W. Osborne, Walter L. Robison and Harry L. Findlay, and also by William M. Osborne, secretary-treasurer.
S. H. Robbins, whose business capacity has been often demonstrated, was born on the 17th of July, 1865, in Trumbull County, Ohio, and is the son of Tilghman N. Robbins and a grandson of Tilghman Robbins, who came from Virginia to Mahoning County, Ohio, in the early pioneer days and engaged principally in farming. S. H. Robbins was reared on the farm and was given a good education in the public schools. He learned practical farming in boyhood, such as planting, reaping and similar duties, but upon reaching the age of nearly twenty-one years, or on the 4th of February, 1886, he engaged in the coal business, and has since made coal production a specialty. His active coal career began with the Osborne, Saeger Coal Company, the Pittsburgh Coal Company and the Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company, and has proved his business capacity from the start up to the present time in all of the exacting positions which he has occupied. The company was fortunate in securing the services of a president so competent after the death of Mr. Osborne, but the other original founders gave him their best efforts for success.
Abner Wallace Osborne, first vice president of the company, was born on his father's farm in Trumbull County, on the 4th of August, 1851, and was there reared and educated. A portion of the old Osborne farm is now incorporated as a part of the present City of Girard, Trumbull County. His first work was on the farm, but upon reaching the age of sixteen years he became identified with local coal operations and gradually worked him- self into that pursuit to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Nearly all his coal activities have been made and demonstrated in conjunction with those of his brother, Francis M. He is now one of the active and proficient managers of the coal expansion movements of the company ; but he often escapes to exercise his leisure hours in the great open places where, with gun and rod, he has secured his measure of success and happiness as a nimrod or as a disciple of the gentle Izaak Walton.
WILLIAM H. FOSTER is one of the veteran officials of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, having gone into the Cleveland offices more than forty- five years ago, and having reached the post of vice president of the cor- poration.
Mr. Foster was born in the old Foster home in Cleveland, on Cedar Street, near Perry, now Twenty-second Street. His father, Nelson K. Foster, was born at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1826. The grandfather
BACHRACH
C
A.J. Ford
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came to Ohio in 1832, in the absence of railroads bringing his family by canal boat to Buffalo and thence by sailing vessel which landed them at Fairport. 'In the meantime his oldest son made the journey with wagon and ox team, transporting the household goods and farm implements. The grandfather bought a tract of land a mile west of Painesville, on Mentor Avenue, and devoted the rest of his industrious life to clearing the land and tilling the soil. He married Clarissa Bryant, and both lived to a good old age, rearing four sons and four daughters.
Nelson K. Foster married Mary Whitlock. She was born at Langtry in Devonshire, England, in 1829. Her father, Elias Whitlock, accom- panied by his wife and nine children, came to America in 1842, making the voyage by sailing vessel, and after landing at Quebec, went on to Montreal and from there came down the river and lake and located in Orange Township, where he bought a tract of timbered land. In a small clearing was erected a house, which became the first home of the Whitlock family in the United States. Elias Whitlock spent the rest of his life as a farmer in that vicinity. Mrs. Nelson K. Foster died in 1921, at the age of ninety-two years. There were three sons, Charles W., William H. and Frank.
William H. Foster was educated in the public schools of Cleveland. It was in 1877, when little more than a boy, that he went to work as a clerk in the offices of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and has been with the corporation continuously forty-seven years.
On June 25, 1884, he married Miss Laura H. Dillon, a native of New York State and daughter of Horatio and Mary Dillon. Mr. and Mrs. Fos- ter have reared five children: Nelson, Herbert, William, Robert and Ruth.
SIMPSON STEPHEN FORD. Forty years a resident of Cleveland, Simpson Stephen Ford in that time has gained many of the honors and other rewards of a sound and able lawyer, is still in active practice and an official in a num- ber of business organizations. His most distinctive public service was ren- dered during the twelve years he sat on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas.
Judge Ford was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, October 7, 1854, son of William and Eliza J. (Frederick) Ford. His early environment was the country and his opportunities those of the district schools until his ambition and energy could provide better mental training beyond his immediate horizon. He grew up at the little town of Richmond. His primary education was acquired in public schools there, and subsequently by teaching he in- creased his individual mental and character training. During 1873-74 he was a student in Richmond College. Those were years of earnest concen- tration and work, striving to rise above the necessities of earning a living while acquiring an education and preparing himself for a profession. After a period of teaching and other work, he entered Allegheny College, at Mead- ville, Pennsylvania, one of the country's best colleges of that time, and in 1881 he was graduated Bachelor of Arts and honored as orator of his class. After graduating he returned to Richmond College, taught there for a time. Both while teaching and for some time prior thereto he had been pursuing the study of law and on June 4, 1884, he was admitted to the bar. Subse- quently he was admitted to practice in the Federal courts. Judge Ford
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located at Cleveland and elected to compete with a bar whose members were recognized as among the ablest of any in the country. Possibly he had his "starvation period" as is usually the case with beginners, but he succeeded ยท and soon became known as an able lawyer and a forceful advocate. His energy and ability brought him not only a large practice, but honors in public and business affairs.
From 1892 to 1896 Judge Ford was a member of the Cleveland Board of Education. In 1920 he was president of that body. From 1895 to 1897 he was second assistant to the director of law of Cleveland, and was first assistant director from 1897 to 1899. In 1899 he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and by reelection served twelve years. There has been no judge of this court who has had so few decisions reversed as Judge Ford. Judge Ford was widely known because of the patient courtesy, kind- ness and ability of its presiding officer. He retired from the bench with the golden opinion of the bar and the public.
Since leaving the bench Judge Ford has continued in private practice. He has served as president of the Guarantee State Savings and Loan Com- pany, as president of the Underwriters Mortgage and Investment Company. as president of the Rapid Transit Company, of the Cedar Heights Land Company, of the Ford Realty & Construction Company, of the Indian River Company. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Cleveland Ath- letic Club, Tippecanoe Club, the Colonial Club, is a member of the Cleveland and American Bar Association, and in politics a republican. He is a mem- ber of the college fraternity Phi Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa, the law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta and has been a member of the board of trustees of Allegheny College.
October 5, 1887, Judge Ford married Miss Altai Marie Scott.
CAPT. JULIUS M. CARRINGTON, now retired, was an interesting figure in Cleveland's commercial affairs for many years, and is an honored veteran soldier of the Civil war. He represents one of the pioneer families of Cuyahoga County, and his father for many years was a prominent Michigan lumberman.
Captain Carrington was born at Lexington, in Sanilac County, Mich- igan, October 17, 1841. His grandfather, Joel Carrington, came from Connecticut to Ohio in 1831, being one of the pioneers in the Brecksville community of Cuyahoga County. Subsequently he removed to Sanilac County, Michigan, and later to Sand Beach in Huron County, that state, where he spent his last years. Mark Carrington, father of Captain Car- rington, was born in Connecticut, July 11, 1815, and was a youth of sixteen when the family came to Ohio. He learned the cooper's trade, and about 1838 went to Sanilac County, Michigan. All that section of Michigan was then covered with heavy timber, and for years lumbering was the only industry outside of hunting and trapping. He had a prominent pioneer part in the development of the lumber industry of Michigan. At first he was in the cooperage business, located a mile south of Lexington, and sub- sequently bought a tract of Government land in the same vicinity at $1.25 an acre. Building a sawmill, he manufactured lumber; and subsequently became a member of the Carrington Pack Company, one of the leading firms of that day exploiting the timber resources of Michigan. He was in
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his carly experience a timber cruiser to select the best tracts of timber land. In that way he became familiar with a large portion of Michigan. Later he formed a partnership with J. L. Woods, buying land, erecting a sawmill in a locality he named Kansas, and became one of the successful and wealthy Michigan lumber men of that time. He continued in the lumber business as member of the firm Carrington Pack Company at Fort Cres- cent, and after selling his interest moved to Port Austin, where he became interested in salt manufacture. After building up a satisfying competency he retired and looked after his private affairs until his death, on January 3, 1894, at the age of seventy-nine. Mark Carrington married Rhoda Ann Butler, who was born in Watertown, New York, in February, 1822, and clied February 1, 1901. She reared a family of eleven children.
Julius M. Carrington spent his boyhood days in frontier communities of Northern Michigan. His first schooling was in a private school taught by an Episcopal minister, and later he attended public schools at Lexington and Port Huron. On February 7, 1862, before reaching his twenty-first birthday, he enlisted in Company E, of the Tenth Michigan Infantry, being mustered in as a private at Flint. He soon went South, and was with his command in a number of campaigns, participating in such historic battles and engagements as the siege of Corinth, Stone River, Antioch and Missionary Ridge. At the battle of Antioch he was wounded, a bullet penetrating his wrist and hand and taking off the end of one finger. A scar on his scalp is testimony to another enemy bullet. He received his honor- able discharge at Rossville, Georgia, in 1864, having been promoted from private to sergeant, to first sergeant and finally to second lieutenant.
After his war service Captain Carrington formed a partnership with his brother Erwin, and engaged in the ship chandlery business at Port Huron, Michigan. After a year and a half he sold out and became an express messenger on a boat plying between Forestville and Toledo, and soon afterward located at Cleveland and became associated with Perry & Knight, lumber dealers. In 1869 he became bookkeeper for Callister & Foster, and in 1878 was made secretary and treasurer of the Peoples Gas Light Company, holding that official post for twenty-one years. In 1892 he became one of the charter members of the Union Savings & Loan Com- pany, and has since served as a director and is also a member of the execu- tive board.
For a number of years Captain Carrington has lived retired at his pres- ent home on Vestry Street. He is a charter member of army and navy posts, Grand Army of the Republic, and a member of the military order of the Loyal Legion. He also belongs to the Early Settlers' Society at Cuy- ahoga County, and the, Royal Arcanum. Captain Carrington and family are members of St. John's Episcopal Church. He has attended that church since 1865, and has been vestryman for many years.
On December 13, 1876, he married Miss Abbie J. McNeil. She was born in Oxford, New York, daughter of Charles and Mary J. (Dennison) McNeil, both natives of Connecticut, her mother born at Stonington. Her father was of Scotch ancestry. The McNeil family came to Cleveland in 1852, where her father was in the lumber business. He died in 1900, in his eighty-sixth year, and her mother passed away at the age of ninety-two.
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Mr. and Mrs. Carrington have two daughters, Ann, wife of J. W. Rebell, and Miss Mary Belle, at home.
JOSEPH SHERMAN VAN DE BOE is president and treasurer of one of Cleveland's oldest and most favorably known real estate firms, the Van De Boe-Hager Company. Establishing this business as a partnership in 1895, Mr. Van De Boe in conjunction with his associates has built up an institution of vital importance to the community as the direct outcome of a consistent policy of rendering service to customers and keeping faith with the public.
J. S. Van De Boe's life story is analogous to that of so many other captains of business who started with nothing but brains and by properly using them arrived at a place of prominence in the business and social structure.
Born at Cooperstown, New York, on January 2, 1859, son of John Leland Van De Boe, he found himself an orphan six years later. Mr. Van De Boe traces his ancestry in this country back to the first boatload of Dutch settlers that came to the new world and founded the colony on the Hudson River. Maybe it was that rugged Holland lineage that prompted him at the age of twelve to strike out to wrest a livelihood from the world." His first job was a farm hand at $10 a month. Two months of this was enough for an immature lad, so he went to work for a manufacturing drug company at Andover, New York, subsequently graduating to a short ex- perience as clerk in a general store.
Believing that "Knowledge is Power," as soon as his accumulated sav- ings warranted, he entered Ulysses Academy, Pennsylvania, and was grad- uated therefrom when sixteen, and entered Eastman's Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York. By this time he felt qualified and taught a country school for a time. The urge for more education induced him to matriculate in Wilson Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, and then later to come to Ohio and enter the National Normal University at Lebanon for special post-graduate work.
, Here in Lebanon he met Mary A. Wood, and in 1881 they were mar- ried. The young couple went to Florida and staked their small assets in starting an orange grove. Everything would have been all right but the young orange grove was frozen to the ground. Mr. Van De Boe had to go to work immediately. He worked at all kinds of jobs from carpenter to bookkeeper. Finally, at Sanford, Florida, he opened a fancy grocery store. Then Sanford had a big fire, which burned him out and disclosed the fact he was carrying wildcat insurance. That was enough of Florida.
Mr. Van De Boe came North and formed connections with a general real estate brokerage firm at Boston, Massachusetts, and eventually became its general manager. In 1893 he resigned that position to engage in the real estate business on his own account in Buffalo, New York. In 1895 he formed a partnership with William M. Hager, and they came to Cleveland, opening offices at 417 Garfield Building, then the city's newest and finest skyscraper. This building, remodeled, is now the National City Bank Building, and the firm, incorporated in 1907 under the name of the Van De Boe-Hager Company, occupies extensive quarters on the fourth floor.
For thirty years this old and reliable concern has been in the allotment
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business, and this fact in itself is a magnificent guarantee of its de- pendability, for no firm can stay continuously in the same line of business in the same city for that length of time unless it comes clean with the buying public. In none of the thousands of transfers made with Cleveland people has this concern failed to do what it contracted to perform, and there has never been the slightest question of perfect title to any of the deeds they have issued.
The whole attitude of doing business of the Van De Boe-Hager Com- pany can best be summed up by the phrase "a square deal." The company wants business, and wants its business relations with customers to be pleas- ant. To that end the officials have adopted certain standard policies which they feel will make for harmony. They have but one price on a lot. It is the lowest they can consistently place on it, and the only change made in it is to increase it as the land becomes more valuable. They have a standard printed contract on each subdivision setting forth the terms and conditions of the sale, in plain, understandable English, and the spirit as well as the letter of the contract is carefully carried out.
Since coming to Cleveland Mr. Van De Boe has been very active in civic matters. High in Masonry, he belongs to Tyrian Lodge No. 370, Free and Accepted Masons ; has held various offices, including that of eminent commander in Holyrood Commandery, and has been advanced to the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite, which was conferred on him by Lake Erie Consistory, October 27, 1899. On May 25, 1899, he was con- stituted a Noble of the Mystic Shrine in Al Koran Temple. On November 21, 1904, he became a charter member of Al Sirat Grotto No. 17, Mystic Order Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, and was later elected as monarch of that body. He is and has been for a number of years a trustee of the Masonic Temple Association of Cleveland, Ohio.
Mr. Van De Boe has a son, H. Robert, a graduate of the class of 1909, United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and two daughters, Anne Gordon and Mary Elizabeth. The son is actively associated in busi- ness with his father, being vice president of the company.
WILLIAM K. RADCLIFFE, a retired Cleveland business man, was a well known figure in the produce commission circles for thirty years or more. He is a prominent representative of the original Manx colony in Cleveland. Cleveland has been one of the principal centers for the settlement of people from the Isle of Man.
Mr. Radcliffe was born at the present site of the Board of Education Building on the west side of "Old Bond," now East Sixth Street, in Cleve- land, on January 16, 1849. His father, John Radcliffe, was born near Ramsey, in Kirk Andrew Parish, Isle of Man, where his parents were life- long residents. He was educated in the schools there, served an appren- ticeship at the millwright's trade, and his acquired skill, combined with his natural talent, make him an artistic worker in wood. Some of the hand- some pieces of furniture he perfected are still owned by his son, William K. Radcliffe. When a youth, in about 1831, he came to the United States, settling in Cleveland, and after working at his trade for a time engaged in business as a building contractor. This work he continued until his death,
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