USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 6
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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
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CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
William P. Chard was about five years of age when brought to Cleve- land, and this city remained his home for over seventy years. He was educated in the local schools, and at an early age went to work, following various occupations. Upon the breaking out of the Civil war he enlisted at fifteen years old, but his mother secured an order for his release. How- ever, in 1864 he was accepted for duty in Company G of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Ohio Infantry, and he went South with the command, remain- ing until the close of hostilities. After an honorable discharge he returned to Cleveland, and for many years was affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic. Mr. Chard spent thirty years with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, first as caller in the freight department, then as tallyman, then as assistant foreman, finally as foreman. Resigning in 1892, he turned his attention to the investment he made from his savings in real estate, and transacted a large volume of business in development of vacant property, and in handling real estate on a brokerage basis, and was bankrupt as stockholder on failure of the Produce Exchange Bank.
As a republican in politics he was active in local affairs and repre- sented the Fifth Ward, a strongly democratic ward, in the city council and subsequently was elected alderman to represent the second district. For four years he was deputy director of public works under Robert McKisson, and in 1891 he served as president of the Decennial Board of Equalization. Mr. Chard was a thirty-second degree Mason, an Elk and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and his funeral was con- ducted under Masonic auspices.
In 1902 Mr. Chard married Miss Mary Hawkins. Mrs. Chard has been and is well known in Cleveland, where she was born January 25, 1857. Her maternal grandparents, James and Mary Granger, left Dublin, Ireland, on account of Catholic persecution, selling their property and settling in Canada, on a farm near London, where they died, their daughter, Jane Granger, coming to Cleveland. Mrs. Chard's father, Richard Hawkins, was in business on Superior Street with Joshua E. Hall, tinsmith. He was of English descent. Her father and mother were married by Reverend Bury, whose Episcopal Church was at Hospital corner, Saint Clair and Erie streets, and later built a new church, corner of Superior and Alabama streets (Twenty-sixth Street). It was called Saint James Episcopal Church, now located on Fifty-fifth Street, near Payne Avenue. It was there Miss Hawkins met William P. Chard. He was librarian in the Sunday school, and she had a class in Sunday school and sang in the choir. Miss Hawkins was educated at Alabama School and one year at the then new Saint Clair Street School near Perry Street, now Twenty-first Street. Her father, Richard Hawkins, died in Cleveland, age twenty- eight years, when she was two and a half years old, a sister being born after he died. The father was buried in Erie Street Cemetery, later was buried in Lake View Cemetery. Judge Tilden was her mother's attorney. As a young girl Miss Mary Hawkins was employed by Judge Tilden in the probate office, and well remembers making out a marriage license and taking it to the courtroom to have the judge sign it. L. D. Benedict was deputy clerk at the time. She has no remembrance of any other buildings except the old courthouse and jail. She helped in the tax office, auditor's office, and altogether was permanently employed twenty-seven years in the
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
old courthouse under republican and democrat administrations. Old settlers will remember the names of Recorders Lamson, Van Sickle, Bohm, Seagrist, Schellentrager, Anderson and Saal.
Near her home on Perry Street (Twenty-first Street), from Twelfth to Thirtieth Street, Payne Avenue was all built up with little low hut houses where pigs, chickens, cows, and sometimes a horse lived in comfort and many went there for milk, eggs, butter, buttermilk, etc. There were no deliveries in those days of such supplies. After a few years all houses were moved from Payne Avenue and it was called Payne's Pasture, and all circuses and fun came to that pasture.
Mr. and Mrs. Chard were married August 14, 1902, by Rev. Paul Lamb, father of former Law Director Paul Lamb. They could not marry before, as after her mother and sister died she had six motherless chil- dren to care for. When she worked at real estate she sold the little Epis- copal Saint James Church (where she met William P. Chard) to Father Thorpe, and it is still there in the rear of the schoolhouse, corner Superior and Twenty-sixth streets. Mrs. Chard has lived in an age marked by the Civil war, Spanish war and World war. The street car was the most exciting object when she was young. She would run down Court- house Alley to Saint Clair Street to see the street cars go by, and many a time saw the car on top of the horse and the rear legs of the poor horse all skinned. She could run like a deer and could always beat the car home. She is a member of Cleveland Chapter No. 139, Order of Eastern Star; Palestine Shrine No. 2; White Shrine of Jerusalem; Cleveland Court No. 6; Order of Amaranth; Memorial Relief Corps No. 44, Grand Army of the Republic Woman's Relief Corps.
CLAYTON C. TOWNES, president of the Cleveland City Council, entered that body before he was admitted to the bar. He has been a leader in civic affairs and republican politics, and enjoys an exceptionally high position in the Cleveland bar.
Mr. Townes was born January 30, 1887, in the old Poe home, which is his present residence, at 3800 West Thirty-third Street. His parents were William C. and Kate (Hoyt) Townes, both representing old families of Cleveland. His father, born on the West Side of Cleveland, was a well known and highly respected citizen of that section, and at the time of his death in 1910 was serving as a member of the city council. Mr. Townes' mother was also born on the West Side, daughter of Daniel Hoyt.
A liberal education preceded Mr. Townes' public and professional career. He attended the graded and high schools of Cleveland, spent one year in Adelbert College, and graduated with the Bachelor of Laws degree from Western Reserve University in 1911. He was admitted to the bar the same year and began practice in partnership with Milton C. Portman. The firm of Townes & Portman continues to enjoy an extensive practice, with offices in the Cleveland Discount Building.
In February, 1911, before his admission to the bar Mr. Townes was elected to fill the unexpired term of his father in the city council, repre- senting the Sixth Ward. With the exception of one term, he has repre- sented this ward in the council ever since. In 1920 he was elected president and was reelected to that important post in 1922. When he entered the
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CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
council he was the youngest man who had ever been chosen to that body, and in point of length of service he is now the oldest member of the city government.
Among the younger generation Mr. Townes is one of the outstanding figures in the republican party of Cleveland. For the past ten years he has served as a delegate to varicus city, county, district and state conventions. In 1920 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of the active supporters of Mr. Harding for President. He served twelve years as a member of the Republican Executive Committee of Cuyahoga County, and was secretary of the committee during the Hughes campaign in 1916. Mr. Townes is affiliated with Brooklyn Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Forest City Commandery, Knights Templar, Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, Glenn Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Brooklyn Lodge of the Knights of Pythias. His clubs are the Univer- sity, Cleveland Athletic and West Wood Country. He is a member of the Cleveland Bar Association and the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Townes married Miss Grace Dix, daughter of John C. Dix, a well known citizen of the South Side, superintendent of the Riverside Cemetery. The three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Townes are Jean, Betsey and Rachel.
CLEAVELAND R. CROSS, member of the law firm of Wilkin, Cross & Daoust, has been engaged in practice at Cleveland for fifteen years, and in that time has identified himself actively with an unusual program of interests, professional, business, civic and social.
Mr. Cross was born May 19, 1882, in the City of Denver, Colorado, son of Rev. Roselle Theodore and Emma (Bridgman) Cross. Doctor Cross came from New York State to Oberlin College in the '60s, graduated from both the college and the theological school and continued with Oberlin several years as principal of the academy. After entering the ministry he became pastor of First Congregational Church of Colorado Springs, subsequently filled other pulpits, and in 1910 returned to Ohio. In order that he might continue active work in the ministry he accepted the pastorate of the Twinsburg Congregational Church in Cuyahoga County, and is now pastor emeritus of that church. Emma Bridgman, his wife, who died at the home of her son, Cleaveland R., in 1910, was born at North Adams, Massachusetts, and is a descendant of the Bridgman and Daggett families, both distinguished lines in New England genealogy. The old Daggett home at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is now the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum. Rev- erend and Mrs. Cross were the parents of five children, the two oldest, Charles and Theodore, dying in infancy, while the survivors are: Leora, a graduate of Oberlin College and the Pratt Library School of Brooklyn, now librarian at West High School in Cleveland ; Rev. Judson L., a graduate of Colorado College and of Yale Divinity School, now pastor of Rollstone Congregational Church at Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Cleaveland R. Cross.
Cleaveland R. Cross spent his boyhood in various cities where his father was in the ministry, and attended grammar schools at Denver, at Min- neapolis, the high school at York, Nebraska, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1903. He spent half a year succeeding that in special study at Washington, D. C., and in post graduate work in economics at the Univer-
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
sity of Wisconsin. In 1907 he graduated from the Law School of Western Reserve University. While at Western Reserve Mr. Cross tutored in the university school. In college he was active in inter-collegiate debating and served as president of the Ohio Inter-Collegiate Debating Association.
Upon his admission to the Ohio bar in 1907 he became a law clerk in the office of J. D. Fackler of Cleveland, and subsequently was associated in practice with the firm Hitchcock, Morgan & Fackler. In 1915 he became a member of the firm Wilkin, Cross & Daoust, a firm of the very highest standing in Cleveland law circles.
His extensive law business accounts for only a portion of his interests and activities. During the World war he was chairman of the Legal Ad- visory Board of District No. 1, a district embracing all of Cuyahoga County outside of the City of Cleveland west of the river. He was also Lakewood chairman of several liberty bond campaigns. In politics he has interested himself primarily for the cause of good government. During the pre- convention campaign of 1920 he was a member of the Leonard Wood Ex- ecutive County Committee, and since that year has been a member of the County Executive Committee, and for 1920-21 was chairman of the Lake- wood Republican Club. He was an alternate delegate to the Republican Na- tional Convention in 1920. He is president of the Lakewood Public Hos- pital, a member of the Community Fund Council and a trustee of the Cleve- land Welfare Federation. A loyal alumnus of Oberlin, he was made a mem- ber of the special committee appointed in 1920 by the college alumni to re- organize the national alumni body and has since been first vice president and president of the new organization. He is a member of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio State and American Bar associations. He also belongs to the John Hay Chapter of the Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity, and is a member of the Cleveland and Lakewood Chamber of Commerce and the West Side Chamber of Industry.
Mr. Cross helped organize and is president of the Colonial Savings & Loan Company of Lakewood, and in 1921 was president of the Cuyahoga County Building & Loan League. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Ohio State Association of Savings and Loan Companies. He is a director of the Land Title Abstract and Trust Company, and is an officer in several other corporations.
During the year 1923 Mr. Cross was president of the Cleveland Munici- pal Research Bureau and for several years has been a member of the Lake- wood Board of Education and chairman of its finance committee. From these connections he has become interested in questions of taxation and public finance and has been active in the support of various measures to secure adequate school revenues and reform in the Ohio system of taxation. He is also chairman of the taxation committee of the Cleveland Citizens' League.
November 11, 1908, Mr. Cross married Miss Ruth Savage, daughter of Frederick J. and Caroline M. Savage of Moline, Illinois. They have a son and a daughter, Robert Alden, born May 14, 1914; and Caroline Murdock. born December 12, 1918.
Mr. and Mrs. Cross are members of the Lakewood Congregational Church. He is a member of the board of trustees and was chairman of that board and also the building committee during the erection of what is
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CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
said to be one of the most beautiful church edifices in the state. His club membership comprises the University, Union, City, Clifton and Westwood Country, and he is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, of Lakewood Lodge No. 601, Free and Accepted Masons, Cunningham Chapter No. 187, Royal Arch Masons, and Lakewood Lodge of Elks.
JOHN H. Cox. While primarily devoted to his profession as a lawyer Mr. Cox has become officially identified with several of Cleveland's im- portant business organizations, and has accepted many opportunities to render service in public spirited movements and in organizations for the general good.
He is a native of Cleveland, born July 2, 1873. His grandfather, John Cox, was a native of the Isle of Guernsey, and was a pioneer settler in Cleveland. For a long period of years he conducted a general merchandise establishment at the corner of Lorain and Guernsey streets in what was then Ohio City, now the west side of Cleveland. Robert Cox, father of the Cleveland lawyer, was born at Cleveland in 1846, and died in 1884. He married Pauline Huber, who came from Germany to Cleveland when she was three years old. She is now in the seventy-sixth year.
John H. Cox was educated in the city public schools, graduated Bachelor of Laws from the Cleveland Law School in 1914, was admitted to the bar the same year, and has since been engaged in a general practice. For a number of years he has also been attorney of the claims adjustment depart- ment of the Cleveland City Railway Company. .
Mr. Cox is a director of the Cleveland Piston Manufacturing Company and is chairman of the advisory committee of the Citizens' Savings Associa- tion.
Some years ago he was a member of the Ohio National Guard. He was corporal of his company on active duty during the Massillon strike and was sergeant during the Brown Hoist strike in Cleveland. He became a mem- ber of the Cleveland Chamber of Industries shortly after its organization, and has served it as a director the last four years, is a former vice president and was president in 1922.
Mr. Cox for a number of years has been active in republican party affairs. He served as journal clerk of the Common Pleas Court in 1911-12, was a candidate for county clerk in 1918, and for three years was president of the Cuyahoga County League of Republican Clubs and is a former presi- dent of the Foraker Club. During the World war he was a four-minute man in all campaigns, including the Community Chest and Liberty Loan drives. Mayor Davis also appointed him to represent the City of Cleveland in the conference held at Philadelphia, in the interests of rehabilitation work among wounded soldiers.
Mr. Cox is past master of Bigelow Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, is affiliated with Thatcher Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, past thrice illustrious master Forest City Council, Royal and Select Masters, Forest City Com- mandery, Knights Templar, Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree, is past president of the Past Masters Association, and a founder and former president of the Masonic Employment Bureau and vice president of the West Side Masonic Temple Company and past monarch of Al Sirat Grotto. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias,
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
Western Reserve Republican Club, the Delta Theta Phi legal fraternity, also belongs to the League of Republican Clubs and is vice president of the Northern Ohio Fish and Game Association.
In 1897 Mr. Cox married Miss Carrie Steinkamp of Cleveland. Four children have been born to their marriage. John R., born in 1898, is a grad- uate of the West Technical High School and the Warner & Swasey Com- pany's private technical school, and for a time was a superintendent of the Kunkle Valve Company at Fort Wayne, Indiana, was assistant superin- tendent of the Foster Machine Company of Elkhart, Indiana, and then or- ganized the Cleveland Piston & Manufacturing Company, of which he is vice president and general manager. He is also a member of Bigelow Lodge and the Grotto. John R. Cox married Vera Turnbull of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The second child, Pauline, born in 1902, is a teacher in Hick Street Public School. Robert, born in 1906, is a student in the West Tech- nical School, and George, born in 1909, also a student in West Technical ยท School. Mr. Cox has his offices in the Hanna Building and his home is at 1272 West One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
JOHN HOAG of Rocky River is one of the sons of Cuyahoga County who have here made record of large and worthy achievement of constructive order. Evidence of this is distinctly given in the brief statement that he was one of the organizers and is president of each : the First National Bank of Rocky River, the Cleveland Growers' Marketing Company, and the Rocky River Basket Company, his residence being in the attractive suburban Village of Rocky River.
On the family homestead farm, in Rockport Township, Cuyahoga County, Mr. Hoag was born November 9, 1876. He is a son of Henry and Mary (Russell) Hoag, natives respectively of the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland, their marriage having been solemnized in Cleveland, Ohio, to which city they came when young folk of adult age. In his native land Henry Hoag learned the trade of marble cutter, and in Cleveland he became foreman of the sawing department of what is now the Norcross Marble Company. Later he and his brother John bought twenty acres of land at the extreme western end of what is now the Village of Rocky River. and here they engaged in farming and fruit-growing on a small scale. Henry Hoag eventually assumed active management of this fine little farm, and there he continued his successful operations until his retirement from active business, in 1914, he being now (1923) in his seventy-ninth year and his wife in her sixty-eighth year. Both are in excellent health and are well known and highly respected citizens of the Rocky River District of Cuya- hoga County. Of their children the eldest is Kate, the wife of Christ Dif- fenbach of the Village of Dover ; John, of this review : Henry, Jr., resides at Dover ; William R., merchant at Rocky River ; Edith is bookkeeper and office manager in the mercantile establishment of her brother, William R .; Charles died on the 15th of May, 1923; and Arthur H. resides on the old homestead.
The public schools afforded John Hoag his early education, which in- cluded a three years' high school course, and thereafter he took a course of one year in a business college in Cleveland. In 1900, with a cash capital of $500, he initiated his independent career by engaging in farm enterprise on
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CUYAHOGA COUNTY AND
the Solomon Pease homestead near Rocky River. There he continued opera- tions six years, at the expiration of which time, in 1906, he sold his equip- ment for $6,000. Thereafter he was in the employ of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, in Cleveland, about three months, and he then formed a partnership with W. J. Geiger, and engaged in the handling of hardware, seed and fertilizers in Rocky River, a business which was by them con- ducted under the firm name of Geiger & Company until they sold the same, in 1907. In 1908 Mr. Hoag bought out the heirs of the Gideon Pease estate, and engaged in market gardening on a tract of twenty-six acres. In 1909 he sold ten and a fraction acres of this land to the Rocky River Greenhouse Company, of which he was the secretary until he sold his interest in the business, in 1910. In 1912 he began the erection of his own greenhouse plant in Rocky River, which comprises two acres under glass, to which en- terprise he gives his personal supervision. In 1919-20 Mr. Hoag was prominently concerned in organizing the Cleveland Growers' Marketing Company, formed for the purpose of effective cooperative selling of fruit, vegetable and farm products produced by growers in the vicinity of Cleve- land. This company purchased a site at 1115 Woodland Avenue, Cleve- land, for a consideration of $150,000, and there erected a modern building, at a cost of $15,000, besides establishing on the same site a series of attrac- tive stands to be used by other growers for the sale of their produce, this latter improvement representing an outlay of $25,000. About the same time Mr. Hoag became one of the organizers of the Rocky River Basket Company, which is incorporated with a capital stock of $50,000, and which purchased the plant of the Wicks Basket Company, in East Cleveland, but which later purchased a site on Lake Road and Rocky River. This com- pany, a cooperative concern, was formed for the purpose of supplying baskets to the stockholders and other growers of the community, and the stockholders now number 173, the greater percentage of whom are growers and shippers of fruits, vegetables, etc. The total assets of the company now have an approximate aggregate of $90,000, and employment is given to fifty persons, in the manufacturing of all types of fruit and vegetable baskets for growers.
In the spring of 1922 Mr. Hoag and several other progressive citizens organized the Community Savings & Banking Company, but were denied a state charter. Later they obtained a charter for the First National Bank of Rocky River, which bases its operations on a capital stock of $100,000, and which now controls a substantial and prosperous business, with a surplus fund of $15,000. Mr. Hoag owns and utilizes sixteen acres of land devoted to the growing of vegetables of the best grade, besides having two acres under glass, as previously noted. From his place he markets in Cleveland annually vegetable products to the sale valuation of from $30,000 to $40,000. He is a director of the Florists' & Gardeners' Insurance Asso- ciation, which confines its operations to giving insurance indemnity on flower and vegetable greenhouses in Ohio. He is a director of the De- positors Savings & Loan Company of Cleveland. He was for seven years a member of the village council of Rocky River, besides having given several years of effective administration as president of the council. He is one of the influential members of the Rocky River Chamber of Commerce.
In Lake Erie Consistory of the Masonic fraternity Mr. Hoag has re-
Elisha Scott formis
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
ceived the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, and he is a noble of Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, his York Rite affiliations being with Dover Lodge No. 489, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a past master ; Cunningham Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Lakewood Council, Royal and Select Masters; and Forest City Commandery of Knights Templars. He is also a member of the Dover Lodge of Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows.
March 2, 1898, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hoag to Miss Edna Lida Pease, daughter of the late Gideon Pease of Rocky River, and the children of this union are four in number: Ruth Katherine, Lucile Winnifred, Jo- sephine Marjorie and Ellis DeForest. Ruth K. is now the wife of Robert Springer of Rocky River.
In the fall of 1923 Mr. Hoag was one of the promoters and organizers of the Falls Greenhouse Company with a capital of $120,000, all subscribed, which company erected a plant on thirty-nine acres of land just outside of the Village of Olmsted Falls, this county, and of this company Mr. Hoag is treasurer-secretary.
ELISHA SCOTT LOOMIS, educator, author and man of affairs of Lake- wood, was born on a farm in Wadsworth Township, Medina County, this state, September 18, 1852, son of the late Charles Wilson and Sarah (Oberholtzer) Loomis. The father was also a native of the Buckeye State, born in Franklin (now Kent), Portage County, July 12, 1828, and was married in Medina, Ohio, to Miss Oberholtzer, whose birth occurred at Colebrookdale, Berks County, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1833. She was the daughter of Jacob B. and Mary (Renninger) Oberholtzer, a German family of note that has resided in the Keystone State for many generations.
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