USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 20
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
John Harrison died on April 29, 1906, after a useful and honorable life. Perhaps his chief characteristic was his broad and unwavering love for humanity. He was a free-thinker on religious subjects, but directed his devotion to the good of the world. Because of these sterling qualities he commanded universal respect from all acquaintances. His first wife was Janet Stewart, who passed away in 1872; she bore him the following children : Sarah, who died at the age of eleven years; Minnie, who became the bride of Charles Morse and is now deceased; Harry B., subject; Cora M., who became Mrs. Clifton D. Hubbell; Edwin Roy. Mr. Lamson's second wife was Miss Martha Brewster.
Harry B. received a sound education in youth and when twenty-two years old began the business of buying and selling cattle on his own account. This experience in salesmanship taught him a new lesson and he soon became a traveling salesman and was thus employed for twenty-five years. This long service has made him a sagacious business man and has brought him to the front as a leader in industrial adventures. He is now prominent in citizenship and eminent in sound reputation. On March 5, 1901, he married Mary A. Cameron, daughter of John J. and Amelia (Amerman) Cameron. Mr. Cameron was of German descent and came to this country in 1848, when twenty-two years old. He spent the balance of his life at Bedford, where he followed the occupation of cabinet making and conducted a furniture store and an undertaking establishment that did excellent service and was widely known in the early history of the town.
HENRY M. MOLDER, at the present time manager of the Best Foundry Company of Bedford, Ohio, has charge of one of the most active and profitable business concerns of Cuyahoga County. Not all of the gigantic industries of the county are located in the City of Cleveland. That may be the center or the hub, but outside are the no less important spokes which uphold the enormous industrial concerns riding on them to suc- cess. The American Stove Company of St. Louis, Missouri, established here many years ago large branch interests and projects which have not only maintained their importance, but have steadily expanded and founded other branches of great utility and profit in this portion of the state and country. But all are auxiliary to the St. Louis establishment. Among the important branches of this concern in Cleveland proper are the Dangler Stove Company, the New Process Stove Company and the Reliable Stove Company. But outside of Cleveland, at Bedford, in fact, is another of their branches mentioned above, the Best Foundry Com-
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pany, which is one of the most important and successful ventures of the great St. Louis company.
The Best Foundry Company, a subsidiary of the American Stove Company, was founded here for the purpose of supplying castings for the parent company, and has continued that task up to the present time with phenomenal success. This branch was established here in 1905 and, in a short time, its capacity was doubled until the area covered is now four acres where the main buildings stand, besides a large space where the other buildings now operate. All of this immense industrial establishment was constructed and founded under the management and supervision of Henry M. Molder. It gives employment to a daily average of 600 employes, and the payroll amounts to about $20,000 per week. Is it necessary to call attention in history to the remarkable business ability of the man who started, made practical and successful, and manages in masterly way, a modern industry of this sort, where constant alterations in essential details are necessary, where labor and capital may be at war at any time, and where continued uniformity and success depend mainly on the progressiveness, alertness and natural broad-mindedness and genius of the manager? If so, then it is here recorded that Henry M. Molder, though benefited materially by many years of study and work, has shown almost phenomenal aptitude for the duties of the post he now so creditably occupies for the Best Foundry Company. This industry is now a suc- cessful enterprise, and its prosperity is largely due to the ability of Mr. Molder.
He is a native of Cleveland, and was born September 16, 1866, a son of Henry Molder, Sr., who, until comparatively recently, was occupied for many years in the butchering business at the Ross Market in Cleve- land. The father served with distinction in the Civil war, and was a member of the 23d Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He saw four years of active and daring service, and became conspicuous by his soldierly conduct. He participated in many important movements and campaigns, and at the end of the war was honorably mustered out and returned to his home duties. He was a native of Germany, and when only twelve years old came to the United States with his brother. He married Susan Holzworth and to this union were born six children.
Henry M. Molder, of this review, was educated in the public schools of Cleveland, and was thus busily employed until he was sixteen years old, when he began business operations for himself. He commenced by learning the metal patternmakers' trade, and while in the foundry took care to master all the complexities and details of the foundry business. He became so proficient, really an expert, that the American Stove Com- pany secured his services as manager to oversee and superintend the commencement of their branch at Bedford. Mr. Molder is now one of the leaders in public affairs at Bedford.
He takes a keen interest in clean politics, steady industry, municipal improvement, moral exploitation and civic development. He is a member of the board of education, and is keenly alive to the importance of Amer- icanizing all aliens and radicals or to the necessity of sending them back across the ocean waves. Mr. Molder married, November 25, 1913, Helen Lockwood, and by her has one child, a daughter, Helen Jane. He is
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a member of the Masonic fraternity of Bedford Lodge No. 375, Free and Accepted Masons ; Bedford Chapter No. 74; Holyrood Commandery, Knights Templar, and Al Koran, Mystic Shrine. He is also a Knight of Pythias, a member of Bedford Lodge No. 467, and Cleveland Lodge No. 1438.
CHARLES M. MIX. A native of Cleveland, where for forty years he has been an active figure in business, Charles M. Mix represents one of the oldest lines of American ancestry dating back to the beginning of the colony of New Haven, Connecticut. In the maternal line he represents a French-Canadian family, established under the old French regime and for many years and up to the present time identified with the City of Detroit.
Mr. Mix is a descendant of Thomas Mix, a native of England. He was one of the thirty-eight associates, comprising some substantial and wealthy Englishmen, who came to America in 1637, landing at Boston, and resisting overtures made by various settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they sought, under the leadership of Davenport and Eaton, land for a colony where they might be independent and free of control from the older settlements around Massachusetts Bay. They purchased from the Indians a large tract of land comprising half a dozen or more townships west of and adjoining the Connecticut River Colony, which had been founded about three years earlier. The center of their settlement was the old Indian village of Quinitiat, which they selected in the fall of 1637, and in December of that year David Slater and six others built a cabin and wintered there, preparing other dwellings and accommodations for the main body of settlers who left Boston in March, 1638, and came to what subsequently was named New Haven. Thomas Mix was allotted land at the corner of Mill and Grove Street, in the southwest part of the colony, and there erected a dwelling. He married Rebecca Turner, daughter of Capt. Nathaniel Turner, who was also a member of the original colony of New Haven. Thomas Mix was a member of the legislative body in the Connecticut colony and was commander and chief of militia. He made several trips to England, and was lost at sea on the ill fated ship Phanton.
The branch of the Mix family under consideration here is represented in the following generations: Thomas Mix, the immigrant; John Mix, born in 1650; Lieut. Joseph Mix, born at New Haven, December 18, 1684; Joseph Mix, born at New Haven, October 28, 1715; David Mix, born at New Haven, September 25, 1744; Ebenezer Mix, born at New Haven, September 31, 1787; Robert E. Mix, born at Batavia, Genesee County ; and Charles M. Mix, who was born at the family homestead on 22nd Street at Cedar Street in Cleveland.
Ebenezer Mix, the grandfather of the Cleveland business man, acquired a good education, learning the mason's trade. At the age of twenty-one he moved to the wilderness of Western New York, settling at Batavia, which was then practically the frontier. He taught a school in winter, working at his trade the rest of the year, and during the evenings studied law. While there he made the acquaintance of Joseph Elliott, agent for the Holland Purchase Company, entering its service as chief mathematician. He was with this old land company twenty-seven years, and during that time surveyed a large part of the land of the Holland Purchase in Western New
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York and founded the Village of Mixville in Allegany County, New York. He was author of a mathematical text book used extensively in public and private schools, and for twenty-one years was surveyor for Genesee County. He was a volunteer aid to Gen. P. D. Porter, the memorable sortie of Fort Erie, Canada, on September 17, 1814, during the closing months of the War of 1812. He wrote a very minute account of this incident. He was a prominent Mason and also prepared an account of the famous Morgan case in early Masonic history. Ebenezer Mix in 1863 came to Cleveland, and he lived retired in this city until his death on January 12, 1869.
Ebenezer Mix married, March 3, 1815, Jemima DeBow, a native of Batavia, New York. Their son, Robert E. Mix, was given all the advan- tages of schools and the scholarly companionship of his father, and studied law in the offices of Willey & Carey at Batavia. Coming to Cleveland in 1850, he was successfully engaged in the practice of law in this city and was one of the able men of Cuyahoga County. He died in 1892.
Robert E. Mix married Mary Josephine Moran, of the old French Canadian family at Detroit, whose name in the earlier generations was spelled Morand. She was born at Detroit, daughter of the distinguished Judge Charles Moran and a descendant of Augustus and Marie Deangoelene of Northwestern France. Their son, Jacques Morand, came to Canada and in 1684 married Jaquette Andet, widow of Francois Nicholas. Their son Jean married in 1705 Elizabeth DaSelva, daughter of Pierre DaSelva. Their son, Claude Charles Morand, became an extensive land holder. His son, Charles Morand, born at Detroit in 1770, married in 1791 Catherine Ziffier, daughter of Louis Ziffier, whose ancestors had received large land grants in Canada from the French government in 1750. Judge Charles Moran, who was born at Detroit in 1797, and died there in 1876, inherited the Morand farm, a narrow strip of land extending from the river through the heart of the City of Detroit. The first home of the Moran family was a hewed log house located on the bank of the river near the Ferry Boat Landing. Judge Charles Moran served as a member of the Legislature when the capital was at Detroit, and had a distinguished part in the early. history of that city. In 1822 he married Julie DeQuindre, daughter of Major Antoine and Catherine DeQuindre. The DeQuindres were descended from some of the first French colonists of America.
Robert E. Mix and wife had four children: Robert Durant; Harriet Julia, who married John H. Kirkwood ; Charles Moran, and M. Josephine.
Charles M. Mix was educated in private and parochial schools, and after finishing his education was for some years engaged in the hardware busi- ness, his store occupying the present site of the Society for Savings Building. Since 1892 he has been occupied with extensive real estate invest- ments and the general real estate business, his offices being in the Society for Savings Building. He is a member of the Cleveland Real Estate Board and Chamber of Commerce, belongs to the Union Club, and is president of the Nattin Savings and Banking Company and vice president of the Doan Savings and Loan Company and the Union Mortgage Company.
Mr. Mix married in 1897 Mary B. Byerley, a native of Cleveland and daughter of Francis X. and Helen Harrison Byerley and granddaughter of Josiah Harris. They reared a family of five children : Robert C., Charlotte M., Helen, Charles D. and Durant. The son Robert completed a course
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in engineering at the Case School of Applied Science. Charlotte is a graduate of the Woman's College of the Western Reserve University, and. Helen is a senior in that college, while Charles is attending Case School of Applied Science.
W. F. EIRICK. In the group of men who constitute the real leaders of the republican party in Cleveland, W. F. Eirick had a prominent part during the past quarter of a century. He has been honored with some of the important offices in city and county, and again and again has proved him- self well qualified for all such responsibilities and honors.
Mr. Eirick was born in Albany, New York. His father, Rev. John P. Eirick, a native of Germany, came to the United States when young, locating in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Well educated and reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church, he took up the ministry of that denomination, and among other pastorates he was located at Zanesville, Ohio, Albany, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey. His last years were spent in retirement at Cleveland, where he died at the age of sixty-five. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Crumley, who was of English ancestry, a native of Fairfield County, Ohio. She died young, leaving six children.
W. F. Eirick attended a private school in Albany, then was a pupil in the public schools at Hoboken, and was only fourteen when he set out to earn his own living. He spent four years as a clerk in Wall Street, New York. On coming to Cleveland he engaged in business under the firm name of W. F. Eirick & Company. For a number of years past he has been connected with the Cleveland Builders Supply and Brick Company as general sales manager, and his business offices are in the Leader News Building.
His first official place in the republican party was as secretary of the Republican Committee of the Twentieth Congressional District, a post he held four years, and he rendered some valiant service for the cause. He was elected in 1902 county commissioner, serving three years. In 1907 he was again elected for a two year term, and in 1911 elected for a third two year term. While he was a member of the Board of County Commission- ers the Detroit and Superior High Level Bridge was constructed. This was a project that had long been considered, but had been deferred because no feasible plan had been brought forward to finance the undertaking. Mr. Eirick devoted considerable study to the problem, and found that the county government could legally be qualified to assume the financial burden, and in accordance with his proposition the bridge was built. Mr. Eirick also turned the first shovel full of earth for the new courthouse of Cleve- land, and served five years as a member of the Courthouse Commission, taking just pride in that noble public building. He still preserves the shovel he used at the initial ceremony. In 1920 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, going there under instructions as a partisan of General Wood and working for his nomination until all hope of his candidacy was abandoned, when he supported Senator Harding. During the early days of 1912, when Colonel Roosevelt visited Cleveland, Mr. Eirick met the former president at the Union Station, and it was to him that Mr. Roosevelt made the declaration that "his hat was in the ring," and it was Mr. Eirick who first made public that declaration, which has since been an idiomatic method of expressing a proposed candidacy.
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Mr. Eirick married, in 1909, Jeanette A. Derenbach, a native of Cleve- land. Their home is at 12811 Speedway Overlook in East Cleveland.
DAVIS HAWLEY, one of the organizers and president of the Cuyahoga Savings and Loan Company of Cleveland, was for many years an active associate with his brother, David R. Hawley, in the hotel business, con- tributing his part toward making the name of Hawley a notable one in Cleveland's financial and business history. Davis Hawley was born near Port Dover, Ontario, Canada, September 18, 1850, a son of Davis and Sarah Amelia (Lake) Hawley.
The history of the Hawley family in America is a long and honorable one, and a book was published a few years ago giving the history of the family. The founder of the family in this country was Joseph Hawley, a native of Devonshire, England, who came to the colonies in 1630, settling in what is now Stratford, Connecticut. His son, Samuel Hawley, Sr., was born in Stratford in 1647. The next generation was represented by Ephriam Hawley, who was born at Milford, Connecticut, in 1692. His son, Capt. Jehiel Hawley, born at Stratford, Connecticut, in 1712, settled, in 1764, with a brother and their father, at Arlington, Vermont, where they were pioneers. Capt. Jehiel Hawley became prominent in the affairs of Vermont, and was one of the two men sent in 1772 to England to settle the dispute between Vermont and New York over the boundary line. Capt. Jehiel Hawley remained loyal to the crown when the War of the Revo- lution began, and started for Canada. His family continued on and found homes in Ontario. Jeptha Hawley, son of Captain Jehiel, was born at New Milford, Connecticut, in 1740. His son, David Hawley, was born in Arlington, Vermont, in 1766. The next in line was Jehiel Hawley, who was born in Canada in 1786. He was the grandfather of Davis Hawley, above mentioned. Davis Hawley, the father, was born at Nappanee, Canada, March 17, 1806, was educated there, was a teacher, and for a number of years operated a sawmill, and later was a farmer until his death in 1863. His wife, Amelia Lake, was born in Ontario, of English ancestors, and died in 1867. They reared ten children: Myra A., Henry A., Miles N., David R., Sheldon F., Amanda P., Davis, Silas, James and Joseph.
Davis Hawley was educated in the schools of Ontario, and in 1865 went through Detroit, where he assisted a dealer in buying live stock for the Detroit market. In 1866 he came to Cleveland, and for three years worked as a cigar boy in the Weddell House, owned by Kirkwood Brothers. The Weddell was then the leading hotel in Cleveland. Subsequently he was a salesman on the road for a woodenware and a match manufacturing firm, and for several years was with the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland, when, in 1873, he became a clerk in the old Clinton Hotel, of which his brother David was owner, and in 1882 he and his brother built the Hawley House, making it one of the standard hotels in Ohio. He continued active in this work until 1901, when he sold out his interests to his brother.
Mr. Hawley and his associates incorporated the Cuyahoga Savings and Loan Company in 1893, and he was vice president of the company for several years, later becoming its president. This is one of the oldest and most prosperous savings and loan associations in Ohio. Mr. Hawley
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has also served as president of the Davis-Hawley Company, president of the Jefferson Iron-ore Company of Alabama and in 1887 he built one of the first, if not the first, modern apartment houses in Cleveland. In 1904 he put up on Ninety-sixth Street what is now known as the Hawley Apart- ments.
Mr. Hawley was one of the organizers and for several years, until 1892, secretary of the Cleveland Baseball Club of the National League, and is the only survivor of the seven original owners of this baseball club. He was also one of the organizers and a director of the Cleveland Athletic Club. He is affiliated with Cleveland Lodge No. 15 of the Masonic Order, Webb Chapter No. 14, Royal Arch Masons, Oriental Commandery No. 12, Knights Templar, Al Koran Temple Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a republican and methodist.
Mr. Hawley married, in 1873, Mary Switz, a native of Cleveland, and her father, Christian Switz, who was born in Germany, came to America when a young man, and volunteered his services at the outbreak of the Civil war, serving in Company I of the Sixth Ohio Cavalry until the close of hostilities, and where his son, Fred, was also a Union soldier. By his first marriage Davis Hawley had one son, Davis, Jr., who attended the Rockwell School in Cleveland. He is a graduate in law of Cornell University, and is assistant treasurer of the Harshaw, Fuller and Goodman Company.
JOHN RALPH OWENS, D. D. S., one of the successful practicing dental surgeons of Cleveland, with offices in Suite 1126 Guardian Building, and an ex-corresponding secretary of the Cleveland Dental Society, was born at Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa, May 15, 1853, a son of John James Owens. The latter was a native of Milford, Delaware. Doctor Owens traces his paternal ancestry back to Great Britain, from whence the family immigrated to the American Colonies prior to the Revolution, and settled on the eastern shores of Chesapeake Bay, gradually moving up to the State of Delaware, where four generations of the family have been reared.
Dr. John Owens, grandfather of Doctor Owens of this notice, lived and died in Delaware, and was a surgeon in the War of 1812. He was a graduate of the Pennsylvania College of Medicine, and continued a constant student throughout his lifetime. He was the friend and intimate of many of the political lights of his day, and was a whig. His family was a large one, and an early migration of the children followed their reaching maturity. John James Owens left the parental roof for Missouri, where he was married, and then moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, where he assisted in the erection of the Government barracks, which work was considered for many years as an excellent bit of construction. With the completion of this contract he moved to Burlington, Iowa, in 1844, and there he continued to live until his death. He was a builder and superin- tendent of construction, and had the supervision of the American Agri- cultural College, the County Courthouse of Des Moines County and many of the best residences of Burlington, among other important contracts. He was a member of the Congregational Church, a republican, a councilman, and a man highly esteemed in his home city. Fraternally he belonged to
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the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was the father of four sons, of whom Doctor Owens was the third.
Doctor Owens was educated in the public schools of Iowa, and was graduated from the high school course at Burlington in 1870. Immediately thereafter he went into the mercantile business, but in 1873, deciding to study dentistry, in the fall of that year he became a student in the Philadelphia Dental College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was graduated therefrom in the spring of 1875, following which he came to Cleveland, and from March 15, 1875, to the present date has continued in an active practice in this city, with very gratifying results. He is a charter member of the Cleveland Dental Society, and has been honored with every office it could confer. Doctor Owens was a member of the original Oral Hygiene Committee that started the movement for better care of the teeth that has gone over this country, and other parts of the civilized world. He was president of the Northern Ohio Dental Association, the second dental society to be formed in the country, on its fiftieth anniversary. Governor Harmon appointed Doctor Owens a member of the Ohio Board of Dental Examiners, and while he was on it the boards brought about many needed reforms and advances in the conduct of dental colleges in the state.
Doctor Owens has never sought publicity, and is consequently not known outside of Ohio. His activities have chiefly been in connection with the local dental society, before which he has presented numerous papers and clinics. His chief specialty has been the care and preservation of pulpless teeth, which at the present time are being extracted so ruth- lessly. With wise, intelligent treatment, most of such teeth can be saved, and to that end Doctor Owens has given many clinics and several papers.
He married Miss Louise Benton, daughter of Horace Benton, and they have three daughters, namely: Beatrice, wife of Frank Ashton Peabody, of Massachusetts; Theodora L. and Horatia, all graduates of Vassar Col- lege, and Beatrice is a graduate of Simmons College.
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