USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 37
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ROLAND T. MEACHAM. The Meacham family has lived in Cuyahoga County for over a century. Each generation in turn has been characterized by men and women of sturdy character, and has exercised helpful influence in the issues and work of the town.
The pioneer of the family in the Western Reserve was Isaac Meacham. He and his wife, Sophia, and their son, Levi E., came from New York State in 1820 and settled in Parma district of Cuyahoga County. Levi E. Meacham was a native of New York and only a child when the family settled in Parma Township. He grew up on the pioneer farm, and made agriculture his lifelong vocation. In Parma Township he married Lucina B. Emerson, daughter of Asa and Sallie (Small) Emerson. Her father was a native of Maine and her mother of Massachusetts. The Emerson family settled in Parma Township in 1818, and Lucina B. Emerson was the first white child born in the township. Her first husband was Charles Nicholas, by whom she had two children. By her marriage to Levi E. Meacham, she was the mother of one son, Levi E. II. The latter was only two months old when his father died.
In November of 1861 Oscar Nicholas and his half-brother, Levi E. Meacham, then aged fifteen years and two months, enlisted as privates in Company G of the Sixty-seventh Ohio Infantry. Oscar remained on duty until 1864, when he was disabled by a severe wound. Levi E. Meacham continued to perform duties of a brave and loyal soldier until the close of the war. Company G was made up largely of young men and boys from the Parma Township. In the spring of 1862 black measles prevailed in the camp of this company, and help from home was requested. When the
Ritenuto Meacham
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company reached Winchester, Shenandoah Valley, the women gathered, and Mrs. Levi Meacham was sent at once to the camp, arriving late in May, and thereafter until the close of the war she was at once a war mother and a war nurse on the battlefield and in the hospital, tenderly caring for the sick and wounded. Thus the entire Meacham family was represented in active service during the great struggle.
Levi E. Meacham II was born in Parma Township, September 5, 1846. He had attended the local schools before he went into the army, and after the war he alternately attended Oberlin, Berea and business col- lege and taught school in Parma Township for four years. He served as a justice of the peace in his early twenties, adjusting matters for people much older but he did not enjoy the work. Then, buying land, he was engaged in farming and in the construction of the Cleveland Breakwater he held the position of bookkeeper until 1880. That year he was appointed clerk in the office of the Common Pleas Court, clerk of Cuyahoga County, and by 1887 he had been advanced to the duties of chief clerk and first deputy of that office. In that year he was elected clerk of the court on the republican ticket, and in 1890 was reelected. He served in that position two full terms of three years and an additional year resulting from a change in the laws. Later he was elected and reelected a member of the Ohio Legis- lature. Levi Meacham, whose character and service earned him a high place in the esteem of Cuyahoga County citizens, died November 18, 1920. He was a member of army and navy posts, Grand Army of the Republic, was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, an Odd Fellow and Knight of Pythias, and a member of the Congregational Church. In 1874 he married Rosaline Biddulph. She died January 3, 1922. To their mar- riage were born a son and a daughter. The daughter, Florence, is the wife of Edwin L. Gleason, a well known Cleveland business man. They have one daughter, Mary Elizabeth Gleason.
Roland T. Meacham, who represents the fourth generation of this family in Cuyahoga County, is one of Cleveland's prominent men in financial affairs. He was born at the home of his parents at Parma, July 21, 1875. After graduating from the West High School he entered Adelbert College, graduating Bachelor of Arts with the class of 1899. Since his college career Mr. Meacham has given more than twenty years to the brokerage and investment business. He is head of the organization known as Roland T. Meacham, stocks and bonds, with offices in the Guardian Building. He has been personally responsible for making this one of the largest and best known organizations of the kind between New York and Chicago.
Mr. Meacham is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Chamber of Industries. In politics he is a republican. June 12, 1912, he married Evelyn Mae Shipbaugh.
AUGUST J. HIRSTIUS has for a number of years been well known in politics and public affairs at Cleveland, is former sheriff of Cuyahoga County, and has also made a commendable record in his business and social relations.
He was born at Cleveland, in 1874. His father, Jacob H. Hirstius,
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was born at Essenheim, Germany, and he and his brother John were the only members of the family to come to America, both locating in Cleveland. Jacob H. Hirstius served an apprenticeship at the machinist's trade, and after completing it worked in different places. In every place he secured a certificate of good workmanship and character. After his marriage he came to the United States, locating at Cleveland, and for twenty years was in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and for nearly thirty years was employed by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company. He is now living retired, enjoying the fruits of a well spent and industrious life, being now seventy-eight years of age. Jacob H. Hirstius married Mary Fuerst, who was born at Elsheim, Germany, and died at the age of sixty-five. They reared four children, named Jacob, A. J., Carl H. and Anna, the latter the wife of Frank Scherer.
August J. Hirstius was educated in the public schools of Cleveland, attending the Sterling School, but when only ten years of age was helping earn his own living by selling newspapers. About two years later he became a cash boy with the E. I. Baldwin Hatch & Company, then con- ducting a business on Superior Street. Later he was a salesman for the wallpaper house of G. H. Lyttle Company, and spent ten years with that business. He resigned to accept appointment as deputy county audi- tor from W. E. Craig, served two years, and for three years was a clerk for the county board of review. In 1905 he was elected a member of the city council, representing the Twelfth Ward, and was reelected in 1907. While in the council he was a salesman for the Cleveland Builders Supply Company.
In 1908 Mr. Hirstius was elected sheriff of Cuyahoga County, and was reelected in 1910, serving the constitutional limit in that office. He proved an able and fearless officer of the law. During his membership in the city council he was largely instrumental in securing the first ref- erendum campaign in the State of Ohio on the street railway franchise and he also did much to awaken interest in and secure the first appropri- ations for three children's playgrounds. In 1913 Mr. Hirstius was elected a member of the Cleveland Heights council, serving two years. .
He is a veteran of the Spanish-American war, having enlisted in 1898 in Company A of the First Regiment, Ohio Artillery, and received his honorable discharge at the close of the war. He is a member of the Spanish-American War Veterans, and is identified with the Fraternal Order of Eagles and the Cleveland Heights Presbyterian Church. He also belongs to Lodge No. 77, Knights of Pythias, the Cleveland Auto- mobile Club, and the Western Reserve Republican Club. He cast his first presidential vote for William McKinley, and has been prominent in the party ever since. Mr. Hirstius married in 1900 Miss Anna Bente, a daughter of Otto and Margaret Bente, of Cleveland. They have one son, Sherwood, born in 1902.
ADAM J. DAMM. When, in the early part of the year 1924, the City of Cleveland adopted the city-manager system of government Mr. Damm was chosen for the responsible office of city treasurer and his effective administration of the fiscal affairs of the city is a fitting sequel to his
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constructive service as a member of the city council for more than ten years.
Mr. Damm was born in the family home on Payne Avenue, near Thirty-eighth Street, Cleveland, on November 2, 1881. His father, Joseph Damm, was born in 1856, in the village of Breitenbuch, Bavaria, Germany, and was a youth of sixteen years when he came to the United States and established his residence in Cleveland. His brother Valentine and his sisters Josephine, Theresa, Anna and Rosie, also became residents of Cleveland. After paying his passage across the Atlantic young Joseph Damm found his financial resources reduced to the minimum, but he had the energy and self-reliance that make for success, and he soon found employment that enabled him to make progress in the land of his adoption. He eventually engaged in the real estate business, and so continued until the time of his death in February, 1917. His wife, whose maiden name was Rosina Seuffert, was born in Kissengen, Bavaria, and died in 1905.
Adam J. Damm attended the parochial school of St. Peter's Church, and continued his studies in the parish school of St. Francis' Church, and was' graduated. He was graduated from Oberlin College in 1900. Leaving college, he became bookkeeper in the offices of the American Shovel & Stamping Company at Lorain. In 1902 he became bookkeeper and pay- master for the American Steel & Wire Company, and in this capacity he continued his service in the Cleveland offices until 1910, when he resigned and engaged in the dry-cleaning business.
Mr. Damm's political activities of official order were begun in 1913, when he was elected a member of the city council. By successive reelec- tions he continued his service in the council until January 7, 1924, when he entered upon his administration as city treasurer. In the council he served under mayors Baker, Davis, Fitzgerald and Kohler, and was for eight years chairman of the finance committee and for two years a member of its judiciary committee.
Mr. Damm is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus and the Fra- ternal Order of Eagles, and he and his wife are active communicants of St. Francis' Church.
In 1904 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Damm and Miss Jose- phine Schneider, who was born and reared in Cleveland, and who is a daughter of Joseph and Mary (Howald) Schneider, the former a native of France and the latter of Cleveland, she being a daughter of George Howald, who was born in France, and who was for many years a successful manufacturer of custom-made shoes in the City of Cleveland, where both he and his wife passed the closing years of their lives. Joseph, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Damm, is now (1924) a student in the University of Dayton, at Dayton, Ohio.
CLARENCE MATURIN BALLOU is the present commissioner of street railways in Cleveland, and is a man of extensive experience in industrial affairs. He is a mechanical engineer by profession, and some unusual technical qualifiactions as well as his personal character led to his appoint- ment as one of the commissioners in the city government.
He was born at North Adams, Massachusetts, son of William A. Bal- lou, a native of the same city, and grandson of Maturin Ballou, who
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was born at Whitehall, Vermont, and for many years and until his death was the proprietor of the Ballou House at North Adams, one of the most popular hotels in the mountain country of Western Massachusetts. William A. Ballou for some years was associated with his father in the management of the Ballou House, and after his father's death became sole manager and continued the business for some years. He is now living retired at Albany, New York. He married Fanny Carpenter, of Meriden, Connecticut. They have three sons, William, Clarence Maturin, and Harrison.
Clarence Maturin Ballou completed his public school education in North Adams and then entered Cornell University, taking the course in mechanical engineering and was graduated in 1907. His first technical service was with the American Telegraph & Telephone Company at Pitts- burgh, where he remained three years. On resigning he became identified with the American Sheet & Tin Plate Company, the corporation which he served until he took his present office. He was in Pittsburgh three years, at Monessen, Pennsylvania, five years, and since then has been at Cleveland. In January, 1924, he was appointed commissioner of street railways.
Mr. Ballou married in 1911 Miss Alice Cosgrove, a native of Braddock, Pennsylvania, daughter of Thomas and Mary Cosgrove. They have two children, Thomas and Frances Ballou.
LESTER M. ROSENTHALL is president of the Boulevard Estates Com- pany, with offices in the National City Building of Cleveland. For a man of his years Mr. Rosenthall has had a most unusual experience and achievement in business affairs.
He was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1884. Sixth in a family of seven children, Lester M. Rosenthall grew up in Pennsylvania, attend- ing the grammar and high schools of that state, and subsequently took up electrical engineering and graduated from the University of Pennsyl- vania with the degree of Electrical Mechanical Engineer. When he left high school at the age of sixteen he went to work learning the practical side of the electrical business. With the Westinghouse Electrical Com- pany he held the position of general foreman in the experimental depart- ment, having charge of the power and lighting of the plant.
After leaving the Westinghouse Company Mr. Rosenthall spent about a year in the amusement business, managing several vaudeville houses. Since then most of his time has been devoted to real estate. His first experience in that line was at Los Angeles, California, where he was associated with his brother, Harry W. Rosenthall, for about eight months. For two years he was with Mr. A. C. Forenstock, of New York City, handling general real estate, and then engaged in business for himself at Philadelphia. He was there a few years, and then at Washington City conducted a brokerage business with Mr. A. C. Cane as a partner.
Mr. Rosenthall has been a resident of Cleveland since 1918. During the first year he was sales manager for the Ford Real Estate and Con- struction Company, and then served as general superintendent for the H. A. Kangesser Company.
After leaving the Kangesser Company he formed the Boulevard Estates
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Company, of which he is president. This company has membership in the Cleveland Real Estate Board. Its primary purpose is the development of allotments and the financing of home buildings for clients unable to invest a large sum of money at the start. The company has an exceptional record to its credit. It developed Bonniewood Park on Lake Shore Boulevard and also Pontiac Park No. 1 on South Lake Shore Boule- vard. Its principal property being marketed at present is Pontiac Park No. 2, also located on Lake Shore Boulevard. The company has devel- oped an allotment on Taylor Road near Mayfield Road and two subdi- visions on South Lake Shore Boulevard and Lake Shore Boulevard.
Mr. Rosenthall has also been a director of the Thomas Burke Amuse- ment Company. This company owns and operates a park between Youngstown and the Pennsylvania line. He is interested in music, plays the saxophone, and is a member of the real estate board, the Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
THE CLEVELAND NEWS has played a large part in the newspaper annals of the Ohio metropolis, and its history is of interesting order-a record of consecutive growth and expansion and of varied and timely augmenta- tion of functions, through consolidations, etc. The origin of the old and reliable paper known as the Cleveland Leader can be traced back to 1844, when a paper called the Ohio American was here founded. In 1847 the Ohio American was united with the Democrat, a paper that was established in that year. In 1852 both were consolidated with the Daily Forest City.
The Cleveland News, a publication coordinated with and under the same control as the Cleveland Sunday News-Leader, can, in 1924, claim to be in its eighty-third yearly volume, by direct descent from the orig- inal evening edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which was founded in 1841, the line passing from the evening Plain Dealer to the News through purchase and consolidation in 1907.
The Cleveland Press is the direct successor of the Cleveland Penny Press, which was founded in 1878. The evening editions of the Cleveland Plain Dealer were first issued in 1841, and the morning Plain Dealer had its inception in the purchase of the Cleveland Herald in 1885. The Plain Dealer continued the publication of both morning and evening editions until 1907, when the evening edition was sold to Charles A. Otis, who consolidated it with the Cleveland Daily World and the Cleveland News and Herald, under the title of the Cleveland News, the Daily World having been established in 1889. The original Evening News was founded in 1868 and soon became the evening edition of the Cleveland Leader. After the purchase of the Herald by the Leader and the Plain Dealer the paper became the News and Herald, in 1885. An evening edition of the Leader had been started in 1861, to meet the demand for news con- cerning the progress of the Civil war.
T. A. Robertson, managing editor, became connected with the Cleve- land Daily Leader in the year 1911. He was managing editor . of the News and the daily and Sunday Leader six years, the daily Leader having then been sold to the Plain Dealer. He has since continued as managing editor of the Cleveland News and the Sunday News-Leader. Prior to coming to Cleveland Mr. Robertson had been for two years
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with the Associated Press and for several years connected with the St. Louis Republic.
THE CLEVELAND TIMES AND COMMERCIAL is a newspaper that is upholding the best traditions of journalism and proving a potent influence in its metropolitan field of circulation. The first edition of this paper was issued in March, 1922, and the directing publishers are Samuel Scovil and O. K. Shimansky, the latter of whom has held from the beginning the position of editor in chief. In the founding of this newspaper both journalistic consistency and business expediency were consulted, and a careful survey of the stage was made before giving to Cleveland and its tributary districts a second morning paper. The primary aim of the publishers of the Times and Commercial has been to give to Cleveland a clean, reliable paper that shall effectively represent local interests, main- tain the best metropolitan standards and carry all of the news of the world without playing up to the sordid and sensational. The paper receives the full press reports of the United News, the Central News of America and the New York World, besides special service in features, cartoons, art, etc., from the Associated Editors, including the New York Herald-Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Public Ledger, and other representative papers. In its service in its field of publication the Cleve- land Times and Commercial is fully justifying its founding and is making a most excellent record.
JOHN M. FRIEND, M. D. Among the members of the medical pro- fession of Cleveland who have won prestige as physicians and popularity as citizens is Dr. John M. Friend, who has been in the active practice of medicine and surgery on the South Side of the city for over thirty years, and for the same length of time has been prominent in the civic and business affairs of that section of the city.
Doctor Friend was born in Covington, Kentucky, on January 28, 1864. He spent most of his boyhood days in Seville, Ohio, where he graduated from high school, and where he studied medicine for two years. He was graduated from Western Reserve University Medical School with the class of 1889, receiving his Doctor of Medicine degree, served for two years as interne at Cleveland City Hospital, and then entered general practice of medicine and surgery in the Pearl Street and Clark Avenue district of the city, and has so continued, for a number of years maintaining his offices and residence at the present location at 2709 Walton Avenue. In 1893 Doctor Friend went abroad and spent a year in study and travel in Europe, taking post-graduate work in diseases of women, also laboratory work, in the hospitals of Zurich, Switzerland, and Frankfort-on-the-Main and Munich, Germany.
In former years Doctor Friend was a member of the surgical staffs of St. John's and Woman's hospitals, and at the present time he is on the staff of the Lutheran Hospital. During the World war he was examining surgeon for the Fourth District Draft Board.
Doctor Friend has figured in the civic and business interests of the South Side and has been active in the development of the West Twenty- fifth-Street-Clark-Avenue district into one of the most important business
Jno. M. Friend M.D.
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sections of the city. He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the old Lincoln Savings Bank and vice president of the same when that institution was merged with the Pearl Street Savings & Trust Company, and he is now a member of the advisory board of the latter.
He is a member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is a member of Laurel Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Forest City Commandery, Knights Templar, Al Koran Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and Valley of Cleveland Lake Erie Consistory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and was treasurer of his class in the last named.
Doctor Friend has one son, Adelbert Kenyon Friend, who was born in 1899, who graduated from Lincoln High School, spent one year in Western Reserve University Dental College, and was graduated Doctor of Dental Surgery from Ohio State University School of Dentistry with the class of '23. He is in active practice of his profession with offices with his father.
ALBERT KROEHLE, president of the Adam Kroehle & Sons Company, and one of the leading manufacturers and business men of Cleveland, became chief executive of the present concern in 1917, following the death of his father, its founder. He is recognized not only as a capable business man, but as a constructive and public-spirited citizen. He was born at Akron, Ohio, October 3, 1862, and is a son of the late Adam and Catherine (Boettler) Kroehle.
Adam Kroehle was born in Alsace-Lorraine, in 1826, and received ordinary educational advantages in his native village, where he also learned the trade of tanner. In 1845, when he was about nineteen years of age, he immigrated to the United States, landing at New York City, where he worked at his trade for a time, subsequently residing at Boston, Massa- chusetts, for about one year. He then made his way to Canton, Ohio, where his married sister was living, but, there being no tannery at that time at Canton, he was forced to find employment at the nearby village of Osnaburg. Industrious, economical and ambitious, he conserved his savings carefully, and in 1860 was able to buy a tannery at Akron, where he made his home for a few years. He then sold out to advantage, and in 1863 came to Cleveland, where he bought the old Story tannery, which then stood at the corner of Dennison Avenue and Pearl Street. The old tannery was subsequently destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt by subscrip- tion, partly with money voluntarily subscribed by the farmers of the south part of Cuyahoga County who desired the convenience of a nearby market for their hides. In 1885 the business became a partnership, and in 1892 there was constructed the tannery part of the present business, on Jennings Road, near the Harvard-Dennison high-level bridge of the present time, the finishing of the leather being done at the old plant. By 1897 the entire new plant was completed as it stands today, and the business removed thereto, the product at this time consisting of automo- bile and furniture leathers. The business was incorporated in 1903, under its present title, and reincorporated in 1917. Adam Kroehle continued as its president until his death, at which time he was succeeded by his son Albert. Mr. Kroehle was one of the well-known and highly esteemed
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men of Cleveland during his day, and was active in civic affairs in the Village of Brooklyn, where he made his home and where he served at different times as a member of the village council. He belonged to the Masonic fraternity, and his religious faith was that of the Presbyterian Church. In 1852 Mr. Kroehle married Miss Catherine Boettler, who was born on a farm near what is now North Canton, Ohio. She died in 1880, at the age of fifty-six years.
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