USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 24
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Mr. Haserot's name has been prominently connected with .other busi- ness organizations. He was one of the organizers and president of the Hough Bank & Trust Company until its merger with the Cleveland Trust Company. He was one of the organizers of the Coal & Iron National Bank, which through various consolidations became a part of the present Union Trust Company of Cleveland, of which he is a director. Mr. Haserot is treasurer of the Gypsum Canning Company at Port Clinton, Ohio, the Highland Cherry Farm Company at Bellevue, Ohio, and the Francis H. Haserot Company at Cherry Home, Michigan, and president of the Mercantile Warehouse Company of Cleveland.
In public service Mr. Haserot was member and president of the Cleve- land Board of Education from 1907 to 1911. At one time he served on the State Central Committee of the republican party, and has been a director of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Union and Country clubs and of the Unitarian Church. He married in 1889 Miss Sarah Henrietta Mckinney, daughter of Judge Mckinney and Henrietta (Stoll) Mckinney, the Mckinney's being of Scotch-Irish and the Stolls of Dutch ancestry. Mrs. Haserot is now deceased, and the four children born to their marriage were Henry Mckinney, Margaret, Francis Samuel and John Hawley.
WILLIAM SPANG. Among Cleveland's larger and more successful busi- ness institutions few reflect so clearly the power of simple industry, careful management and the fundamental bedrock principals of commercial in- tegrity as the J. Spang Baking Company. A brief history of this enter- prise will be most effective so far as it indicates the personal factors most prominent in making the business of today.
Julius and Fredericka Spang were pioneer bakers of Ohio, and from a modest beginning, involving largely the work of their own hands and
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skill, laid the foundation and helped in the complete building of one of the largest baking industries of Ohio, incorporated for $600,000, with two large plants in Cleveland and one in Lorain. The company employs 113 motor and horse-drawn vehicles in the route deliveries of the three plants. To these two pioneer bakers, the one the master baker, the other the busi- ness head, is due the credit for the present magnificent enterprise. It was their work, their studious attention early and late, their perseverance under all difficulties, which brought the Spang bakery along the road of success until it was a recognized factor in its line and until their sons, who as boys, had helped with the work, reached the age and efficiency where they could lift the burden from the shoulders of the old folks.
Julius Spang was born in Germany, in 1852. He was married there to his life's companion and helpmate, Fredericka. In the old country he learned the baker's trade. In 1882, accompanied by his wife and five children, he came to America, locating at Cleveland. His first employment here was as baker for the old Stillman Hotel on Euclid Avenue, east of East Ninth. At that time this was the only hotel on that avenue, and it was the limit of the downtown business center. Later on he was in the employ of the Ohio Baking Company. About that time, in order to find a better environment for his large family and to lessen the living cost, he and his wife rented a farm at Brecksville, he continuing to work in the city, walking most of the time to and from the farm, while his wife and older children cultivated the land.
It was in 1889 that Julius and Fredericka Spang established a small bake shop on Barber Avenue in Cleveland, the site of this shop being the ground covered by the main plant today. His wife and children bore their share of responsibilities in starting the business. For a long time the ship had a precarious existence. It was a hand to mouth business, the capital being only sufficient to buy supplies from day to day. Mr. Spang would pur- chase a stock of flour, bake a batch of bread and his good wife would then peddle it among the stores. While the husband was the mechanic and the master of the technical processes of the bread making, she was the finan- cier and sales manager. Long since her entire family have given her the credit for the business in its larger developments. It was her ability to manage and to inspire others of the household in the common cause that the Spang Company grew and flourished. It materialized out of her genius. She was an indefatigable worker, attentive to duty from dawn to late at night. She compelled success, and the Spang Bakery as an organ- ized business has flowed out of her energy.
From finding sales among neighboring grocers and residences, they secured a stand in Central Market, with Mrs. Spang in charge. In order to make it possible to put back each day's income into the business itself she "kept boarders" as a means of meeting the household expenses. Later came the route wagons, then the automobile delivery, then the main plant, followed by the extension of the business to Lorain, and finally the East Side plant. Her interest was as completely absorbed after the industry had become firmly established as in the beginning. Fortunately she lived to see the incorporation of the business with a capital of $20,000 preferred stock, and it was an added pleasure that the husband and five sons were
Fredericka Sprang
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all closely identified with the enterprise. Then and now her family have realized that the success of the business was due to her.
This noble woman passed away January 3, 1922, when she was sixty- nine years of age. Her devoted husband continues as president of the company, though he has practically relinquished the active responsibilities to his sons. The children of Julius and Fredericka Spang are all living : Albert, Emil, Arthur, Henry, William, Lena and Lydia. Lydia is the wife of Herman Knobel, of the Knobel Brothers, florists.
The secretary and general manager of the Spang Baking Company is William Spang, who was born while the family lived at Blecksville in Cuyahoga County, August 20, 1887. He was educated in the public schools of Cleveland. As a school boy he worked mornings and later afternoons in the bakery. On leaving high school he started to learn meat cutting, but finding it uncongenial, entered the service of the old Lincoln Savings and Banking Company. He spent five years with that institution, and his train- ing in the bank was the best possible qualifications for the position he has since held with the Spang Baking Company. In December, 1911, he joined the family organization. At that time the company had twenty route wagons and only one plant. Since then a great development and expan- sion has occurred in the history of the business. Since 1914 Mr. William Spang has been general manager of the entire enterprise, including the three plants.
Likewise he has taken active part in local affairs, especially in the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, of which he is second vice president, a director and a member of the executive committee. He is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is affiliated with Concordia Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, the Cleveland Athletic and the Cleveland Yacht clubs. He married in 1909 Miss Gladys E. Beckwith .. She was born at Berea, Ohio, daughter of Fremont E. and Ida (Claflin) Beckwith. Their three sons are LeRoy W., Kenneth M. and Russell B. Spang.
CHARLES G. BECKWITH, commissioner of the division of light and power at Cleveland, is an electrical engineer of recognized standing in his profession, and has had an extensive experience since boyhood in the various branches of electrical industry.
Mr. Beckwith comes of a family of noted mechanical genius. He was born in Dowagiac, Michigan, a son of Edwin W. and Clara L. (Sullivan) Beckwith, and grandson of Walter G. Beckwith, who came from New York State and settled in Cass County, Michigan, about 1833. Another branch of the Beckwith family located at Dowagiac some years later, and founded and built up the stove manufacturing industry which has been the commercial institution by which the name Dowagiac is best known all over the world. Edwin W. Beckwith was a farmer during most of these years, though for about a decade he was in the shoe business at Dowagiac.
Charles G. Beckwith attended public schools at Cassopolis, the county seat of Cass County, graduating from high school there, and took the course in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. The appli- cation of electricity to power and lighting was a comparatively new thing when Mr. Beckwith began his technical education. In a practical way he has done much to extend the uses of electricity, and has also contributed
Vol. II-12
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some of the original ideas in research in laboratory practice. On leaving the university he became associated with the G. H. Hammond Packing Company at Hammond, Indiana, in charge of the electrical equipment, where he remained three years.
Following that came a period in which he was engineer and superin- tendent of construction for a number of lighting plants, superintending the building of such plants at Dowagiac, Michigan, La Grange, Indiana, Dundee and Cassopolis, and did his first municipal work in Ohio at Mont- pelier, where he installed the electric light and water power station and served as electrical engineer and manager of the municipal plant five years, until 1900. In that year he became electrical engineer and superintendent of the municipal plant at Collinwood, Ohio, and from there came to Cleve- land to take charge of the municipal light and power plant, and has since ' then been the electrical engineer in charge of the municipal department, looking after this service. In recent years his title has been changed to commissioner of the division of light and power. He has personally planned and supervised the installation of the modern system of lighting, particularly the white way system, which he planned and worked out as the first of its kind in the world.
Mr. Beckwith married in 1895 Miss Belle N. Norton, a native of Cassopolis, Michigan, and daughter of M. Z. and Celia Norton, of an old family of that section. Mr. and Mrs. Beckwith adopted in infancy his nephew, Ray N. Ellis, who had been left an orphan, and they have reared and educated him as their own child. This adopted son graduated from Miami University in June, 1924.
Mr. C. G. Beckwith was made a Mason at Montpelier, Ohio, and demitted to the Collinwood Lodge. He is also affiliated with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, is a member of the University of Michigan Alumni Association, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Cleveland Engineers Society, and the Electric League of Cleveland.
BERTRAND C. MILLER is clerk of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, with offices in the Postoffice buildings at Cleveland, Toledo and Youngstown. He has been identified with Cleveland for over a quarter of a century, having been clerk of the Federal Courts for a number of years. He was admitted to the bar of Ohio in June, 1908.
Mr. Miller was born at Mount Gilead, in Morrow County, Ohio, son of Ralph P. Miller and grandson of Frederick Miller. Frederick Miller, a native of Vermont, came when a young man to the West, first locating at Louisville, Kentucky, where he met and married Electa May Stratton. After his marriage he moved to Ohio, locating at Shalersville, in Portage County, where he conducted a hotel. From there he moved to Mount Gilead, and was in the hotel business and later a grocery merchant. He and his wife both lived to good old age. Their children were William, Amanda, Mary J., Frederick A., Jr., Anna, Charles S. and Ralph. Fred- erick and Charles were soldiers in the Union Army, and Frederick for a time was a prisoner in Libby Prison.
Ralph P. Miller was born at Shalersville, in Portage County, Ohio, in August, 1849. When he was fourteen years of age he ran away from home and tried to enlist .. He was at Camp Dennison a few weeks, but his father
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took him away and turned his patriotism into a new channel by securing an appointment for him as a page in the House of Representatives at Columbus. He acquired a good education, completed a course in the Monongahela Business College at Pittsburgh, and learned the printer's trade. For twenty-two years he was clerk in a bank at Mount Gilead, and was then appointed deputy probate judge of Morrow County. He is one of the prominent Odd Fellows of the state; served as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio in 1898, and as assistant secretary of the Grand Lodge since 1898. He married Mary Jane Andrews, who was born at Williamsport, Ohio, February 8, 1850, daughter of Bertrand and Rachael (Hand) Andrews. Bertrand Andrews was born at Westfield, New York, and, coming to Ohio with his parents, who were pioneers at Williamsport, he acquired a good education and taught school for several years, also studied law and became a well known attorney at Mount Gilead, where he practiced until his death in 1895. Ralph P. Miller and wife reared four children, Bertrand Charles, Ralph Freeman, Helen Cecelia and Robert Halliday.
Bertrand Charles Miller graduated from Mount Gilead High School in 1892. He spent one year as a student in Ohio State University, and for a time was clerk in the office of the probate judge of Mount Gilead. For a few months he was employed as a painter in a wagon factory in Miami County, and for ten months was in the employ of H. W. DeVore & Com- pany, commission merchants at Toledo. On February 4, 1896, he became an assistant clerk in the office of the United States Circuit Court at Toledo, and during his work in the courts he studied law in the law department of Baldwin University at Cleveland, and was graduated with the highest honors. He was admitted to the bar June 23, 1908, but has never engaged in the practice. He was made a deputy clerk of the United States Circuit Court in 1897, and was transferred to the Cleveland office in 1898, in which capacity he served until 1909, when he was appointed clerk of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio. On Janu- ary 1, 1912, the work of the Circuit and District courts was combined, and he was appointed clerk of the District Court of the United States.
Mr. Miller is a member of the Baptist Church. He is affiliated with Mount Gilead Lodge of Odd Fellows, No. 169, Windermere Chapter No. 203, Royal Arch Masons, Oriental Commandery No. 12, Knights Templars, Lake Erie Consistory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree, and Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
WILLIAM BURROUGHS WOODS has developed in the City of Cleveland a substantial and representative law business, and has here been established in the successful practice of his profession for the past twenty years. He is one of the popular members of the Cleveland Bar Association, and is affiliated also with the Ohio State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. In his character and achievement he is honoring not only the family name, but also the state in which he was born and reared.
Mr. Woods was born at Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, August 30, 1879, and is a son of Emery and Ellen (Burroughs) Woods, both likewise natives of the old Buckeye State, the father having been born at Auburn, Geauga County, Ohio, August 1, 1849, and the mother having been born
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at Troy, that county, a daughter of Lewis A. and Jane ( McConnell) Bur- roughs. Lewis A. Burroughs compiled and published an interesting his- tory of the Burroughs family, which has long been established in Ohio. William Woods, paternal grandfather of him whose name introduces this review, was born in Auburn Township, Geauga County, and was a son of Benjamin Woods, who was born in Massachusetts, whence he went forth as a patriot soldier in the War of the Revolution, he having later become one of the pioneer settlers of Geauga County, Ohio, where he reclaimed and developed a productive farm and where he and his wife remained until their deaths. William Woods devoted his entire active career to the farm, and was one of the representative citizens of Geauga County at the time of his death, when about seventy years of age.
Emery Woods passed his childhood and early youth on the old home farm, and in the meanwhile profited by the advantages of the common schools of his native county, besides which he later learned the blacksmith trade, in which he became a skilled workman. He lived on a farm for a few years in Hiram Township, Portage County, then moved to Geauga County, also on a farm. In the early '80s the family moved to Garretts- ville, Portage County, and there the home continued to the time of of his death, in 1912, and there his widow died in 1914, the two surviving chil- dren being William B. and Walter A.
While still a student in the public schools at Garrettsville William B. Woods served a practical apprenticeship to the printer's trade in the office of the Garrettsville Journal, the local paper. This technical knowledge stood him well as a means for the earning of the funds to defray his college education. After his graduation from the Garrettsville High School he entered the literary, or academic, department of the Ohio State University, at Columbus, and in the same he was graduated as a member of the class of 1902 and with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. In 1904 he was graduated from the law department of the university, and his reception of the degree of Bachelor of Laws was virtually coincident with his admis- sion to the bar of his native state. He forthwith established his residence in Cleveland, and here he has built up a law business that stands in evi- dence of his professional ability and his secure place in popular confidence and esteem. From 1912 to 1916 he represented the Twentieth Ward in the City Council, from 1917 to 1918 he was first assistant law director of the city, and in 1920 he became city law director, an office of which he con- tinued the incumbent until January, 1922. His undivided attention is now given to his substantial general law business. In his home community of Cleveland Heights he is now serving as a member of the Board of Educa- tion. He is affiliated with the Beta Theta Pi, the Phi Beta Kappa, and the Phi Delta Phi college fraternities, is a member of the Masonic Lodge at Garrettsville, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, and has membership in the University Club and the Canterbury Golf Club.
The year 1909 recorded the marriage of Mr. Woods and Miss Helen E. Buell, who was born and reared in Cleveland, and who is a daughter of Dr. Albert C. and Ada (Waite) Buell. Mr. and Mrs. Woods have two children : William E. and Richard H.
JOSEPH SYKORA, M. D. A native of Cleveland, the first male child of Bohemian parents born in the city, Doctor Sykora for nearly half a century
Aussell M. Keith
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has given his time and talent to a broad scope of duties as a physician and surgeon. His name is deservedly honored in the profession and also in civic affairs.
He was born on old Irving Street, now East Twenty-fifth Street, August 10, 1853. His father, Francis X. Sykora, was born in Bohemia, and there married Marie Vetrowski and brought his bride to the United States in 1853. He was one of the early merchant tailors of Cleveland, and for a short time was with a big clothing company on River Street, but soon opened his own shop across the street from old City Hotel, on Seneca Street, now West Third Street.
Doctor Sykora attended the old Academy Public School on Saint Clair and Academy streets. He began the study of medicine in the offices of Dr. Proctor Thayer, at that time professor of surgery and medical juris- prudence in the old Cleveland Medical College, now Western Reserve University. Doctor Sykora graduated from this medical college with the class of 1875, but prior to that had been associated with his preceptor in practice, so that he was well qualified for independent professional work as soon as he was granted his degree. In that year he established his office and home at what is now 5053 Broadway, and was the first physician to locate in that section of the city. Doctor Sykora was the first physician to Saint Alexis Hospital, beginning in 1884. At that time the hospital, which for many years has been one of the leading institutions of the kind in the city, was located on its present site, but was housed in the old County School House. Doctor Sykora has served as physician on the staff since 1884, having given all this service without pay. He was district city physician from 1875 to 1879.
Doctor Sykora was a member of the old Cleveland Medical Society, . and has had active membership in several of the city's professional organi- zations. He was affiliated with Newburg Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and the Council and Royal Arch Chapter of Masonry.
His first wife was Louise Prochaska, a native of Cleveland. She left two sons: Joseph, a resident of Cleveland, and Leonard, deceased. Doctor Sykora married for his second wife, Barbara Cansky, also a native of Cleveland. Seven children were born to their marriage: Puella, wife of Paul Cooley ; Flora, wife of Samuel P. Waugh; Viola and Cynthia, unmarried ; Leonardo, deceased; Helen and Francis X.
RUSSELL M. KEITH. To attain the post of manager of any one of the group of Statler hotels throughout the country is equivalent to achieving one of the highest positions, involving success in the full meaning of that word, in the hotel business. The manager of the Hotel Statler at Cleve- land is Russell M. Keith, who has been connected with several other promi- nent American hotels. He has an interesting record of achievement in his chosen business, and is the example of a modern, progressive business man whose family traces back to the most substantial of old New England stock.
Mr. Keith was born in Raynham, Massachusetts, December 6, 1876. His ancestry includes the Keith and Perkins families of New England, and the Lees of Old Virginia. He is a lineal descendant of that Rev. James Keith who came from Scotland in 1649 and located in Plymouth, Massa- chusetts. Subsequently he took charge of a church at North Bridgewater,
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now Brockton, Massachusetts, and labored the rest of his life in that locality. Plymouth County, and particularly the great shoe manufacturing City of Brockton, has been the home of the Keith family for many suc- cessive generations.
Zephaniah Keith, father of the Cleveland hotel man, was for many years engaged in the retail shoe business at Brockton, where he died in 1909. Zephaniah Keith married Charlotte Lee Perkins. She was born at Brockton, Massachusetts, daughter of James Perkins, and also a descend- ant of Capt. Albertus Lee, an officer of the American forces in the Revolu- tionary war, and a resident of Culpeper County, old Virginia. James Perkins, father of Mrs. Charlotte L. Keith, was founder of the Bridge- water Iron Works. This was one of the pioneer ironwork industries in America. It originally used the Massachusetts bog iron. The plant manu- factured the first rifle-turned guns in this country, made the large anchors for the Eads Bridge, St. Louis, made the cannon for the Northern Army during the Civil war, and manufactured nails and a large variety of iron and steel products, and the first tapering lathes in America. James Per- kins was the official head of the industry for many years.
Russell M. Keith was reared in Brockton, Massachusetts, graduated from the high school in that city, and for two years was a student of dentistry. Before graduating he was attracted into the hotel business, and his individual abilities and resources have been directly responsible for his rapid promotion and progress in that line.
On leaving Brockton he moved to New York City, and his first im- portant service was with Sturtevant Hotel on Broadway, following which he opened the Collingwood Hotel in New York, and a year later became identified with the Hotel Belvedere in Baltimore. He was prominent in hotel circles at Baltimore for five years. Mr. Keith was connected with the Hotel La Salle at Chicago from the time of its opening.
He continued to hold the post of night manager of the Hotel La Salle until he came to Cleveland as night manager of the magnificent new Hotel Statler on July 10, 1916, and on February 1, 1921, he became manager.
Hotel men's organizations all over the country recognize Mr. Keith as president of the Cleveland Hotel Men's Association, and he has also been active in civic affairs, and is one of the distinguished Masons of this coun- try. He is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Asso- ciation of Building Owners and Managers, being trustee of that associa- tion, secretary of the George W. Stone Company, president of the Cleveland Hotel Association, member of the Cleveland Association of Credit Men, the Cleveland Real Estate Board, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Electrical League, and trustee of the Euclid Avenue Associa- tion. He belongs to the Cleveland Advertising Club, the Rotary Club, the Lakewood Country Club, Acacia Country Club, Shrine Lunch Club, the United States Grand Opera Club, the Ohio Chapter of the New England Society.
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