USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 2) > Part 8
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Harry Decker while attending public school helped his father in the market garden, and in 1882, at the age of eighteen, became clerk in a dry goods store. After five years of close attention to his work and a broaden- ing experience and knowledge, he opened a small store of his own in 1887 on Pearl Street, now West Twenty-fifth. With succeeding years he came into the possession of a large and valuable trade, and for thirty years was one of the leading merchants of the south side. Mr. Decker sold out his dry goods business in 1917, and then became one of the organizers of the Decker Realty Company, dealers in real estate, contractors and home build- ers on the west side and at Lakewood. Here the company has erected about fifty homes during the last three years.
Mr. Decker was one of the organizers of what is now the Pearl Street Savings & Trust Company. Since this organization for a period of thirty- five years he has been a member of its board of directors. He was one of the organizers of the Emil Spang Baking Company, of which he was vice president and treasurer, and was one of the organizers of the Marvel Amusement Company on West Twenty-fifth Street, served as president seven years and is still one of its largest stockholders. Mr. Decker is a popular member of Laurel Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and Pearl Lodge, Knights of Pythias.
He married Miss Eva Weihl, a native of Cleveland and daughter of the late Valentine Weihl. Mr. and Mrs. Decker have five daughters : Elsie H., wife of Herman F. Guentzler, connected with the United Bank of Cleve- land, and they have one son, Robert; Evelyn, wife of Edward W. Graebner, a Cleveland dentist, and they have a son, Paul; Dorothy, wife of Carl Starck of Cleveland; Palmetta, wife of Harry Kennedy, a salesman in Cleveland; and Miss Ruth, at home.
MANNING F. FISHER. Americans everywhere during the present cen- tury have become familiar with the system of chain stores, in which the efficiency and standard quality of goods and service of a single establish- ment are by means of centralized management duplicated and manifolded in scores and perhaps hundreds of similar stores covering an entire metro-
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politan district and in many cases extending beyond state boundaries. While this form of business has had an enormous form of development within the present century, there were pioneers working out the funda- mentals of the plan thirty or forty years ago. One of them was Manning F. Fisher, who is president of the Fisher Brothers Company of Cleveland, owners of a system of grocery stores known to if not patronized by every family in Cuyahoga County.
Mr. Fisher was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, December 8, 1863, son of Manning F. and Harriet (Rittenhouse) Fisher. He had limited opportunities to attend school and when thirteen years of age he became an employe of a wholesale hat company in New York City. He began as office boy and remained with the firm six years in increasing responsibili- ties. Then in 1882, forty years ago, with a very slender capital account he set himself up in business by opening a retail butter store in New York City. Thus modestly launched in the provision trade, he has been in that field ever since. His one butter store prospered and he established four others, and had all of these five stores in one section of New York. He sold this business in 1887, and he then became department manager for James Butler, who at that time had achieved the conspicuous and unheard of success of owning and operating a chain of 150 retail grocery stores in New York City. Mr. Fisher was a department manager associated with the Butler business for about twenty years.
In 1907 he removed to Cleveland and formed the firm of Fisher Brothers. In 1908 the business was incorporated as the Fisher Brothers Company, with Manning F. as president. Their first retail grocery store was located at the corner of West Forty-seventh Street and Lorain Ave- nue. In seventeen years the business has grown until now the company owns and operates more than 200 retail stores, serving practically every neighborhood and community of Cleveland and vicinity. Over 1,200 per- sons are employed at these stores and in the various departments of the business. In the central business district is located a large fireproof ware- house and bakery, to which the outlying individual stores are supplied with their merchandise stocks. This was one of the first firms in Cleveland to inaugurate the "cash and carry" policy in the retail grocery business.
Mr. Fisher is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, which he served as president in 1917. He is a member of the Cleveland Rotary Club, Cleveland Advertising Club, and treasurer of the City Savings & Loan Company, and was actively asso- ciated with various organizations handling the local war program. Mr. Fisher married Miss Bertha Christie, of Bayonne, New Jersey. They are the parents of four children. The two oldest Britton and Ellwood, are both graduates of the West High School and are now associated in busi- ness with their father. Ellwood was graduated in 1921 from Dartmouth College. The third child, Miss Harriet, is a graduate of Wellesly College, and the youngest, George, is attending the Culver Military Academy in Indiana.
JOHN W. LEAHY. an able and prominent member of the bar of Cleve- land, Ohio, has been engaged in the practive of law in Ohio for more than forty years, and since 1909 he has maintained his home and professional headquarters in the City of Cleveland.
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Mr. Leahy was born in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick, Ireland, on the 15th of January, 1851, and was twelve years of age at the time of the fam- ily immigration to the United States. He is a son of the late Thomas and Ellen (Hartnett) Leahy, and he has the distinction of being a scion of one of the oldest families of the Emerald Isle, the genealogical record tracing back through the many generations to Milesius, of Spain, who married Scota, daughter of King Pharoah of Egypt. The seventh son of Milesius was Heremon, who, with his brother Heber, went from Spain to Ireland and, in the year 1099, B. C., the two brothers became, jointly, the first Milesian monarchs of Ireland, the Milesians having possessed and ruled the Kingdom of Ireland for 2,085 years, under 183 successive monarchs-or until their submission to King Henry II of England, who was a prince of their own blood. From Milesius, through the line of his son Heremon, is traced the descent of Colla da Chrioch, the ancestor of the O'Leahy fam- ily, the ruler of Ireland and Alba (Scotland) and the head of the Colla
clan, who were the Milesian rulers of Ireland from 320, A. D., up to the reign of Henry II, 1186, A. D. The O'Leahy family, as members of this historic clan, were made chiefs of Hy-Maine, a territory in the Irish counties of Galway and Roscommon, in the reign of the Clan Colla. Fol- lowing the invasion by Henry II of England, the main branch of the O'Leahy family went south to County Kerry, and there the ancestors of John W. Leahy, the Cleveland lawyer, were born. In the Anglicized form of the name O'Leahy the "O" has been dropped. On their shields and standards the Milesians bore the figure of a lion, and this ancient symbol is retained by representatives of the family to the present day, the Leahy coat of arms including also the fleur de lis.
Thomas Leahy, father of the subject of this review, was born in County Kerry, and his wife in County Limerick. In 1863 they came to the United States and settled at Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio. Later they established their home on a farm in the Van Metre district of the Mohawk Indian reservation in that county, where, in Eden Township, Thomas Leahy pur- chased a farm. There he continued a representative of farm industry during the remainder of his life, both he and his wife having died on this old homestead. Of their children John W., of this sketch, is the eldest; Maurice is a representative physician and surgeon at Tiffin ; James F., who was formerly engaged in the practice of law at Tiffin, is now connected with a banking and discount institution at Detroit, Michigan ; Miss Mary A. lives with her brother, Rev. Father Leahy, and Margaret, who died June 17, 1923, and who, until her death, also lived with her brother, Father Leahy, pastor of St. James Catholic Church in the City of Lakewood, Ohio ; Thomas F. is a stock-grower and dealer at Tiffin, Ohio; Richard P. is a capitalist at Bay City, Michigan ; Rev. Michael D., pastor of St. James Church, Lakewood, Ohio, was the next in order of birth, and Dr. Jere- miah E. is a successful physician and surgeon in the City of Chicago.
John W. Leahy gained his rudimentary education in the schools of his native land and was, as before stated, twelve years of age at the time of the family removal from Ireland to the United States. He continued his studies in the schools of Seneca County, Ohio, and advanced his education by a course in Heidelberg College, at Tiffin, that county. For a number of years he gave effective service as a teacher in the public schools, and in
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preparation for his chosen profession he read law in the offices of McCauley & Pennington, at Tiffin. He was admitted to the Ohio bar December 6, 1881, and later was admitted to practice before the United States District Court. He continued in the active practice of law at Tiffin from 1881 to 1903, and from 1903 to 1908 he was head of the legal department of a large commercial enterprise carried on at Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, as well as of the legal department of a manufacturing and shipping business carried forward at Mobile, Alabama, and Havana, Cuba.
In 1909 Mr. Leahy established his residence in Cleveland, where he has since continued in the active and successful practice of his profession. In 1917-18, after the nation entered the World war, Mr. Leahy served as chief registrar and associate member of the legal advisory board in con- nection with the selective service law, for District No. 14. He is a member of the Cleveland and the American Bar associations, and of the Academy of Political Science, of New York City ; is past exalted ruler of Tiffin Lodge No. 94, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he has been a member since 1890, besides which he has been a member of the Ohio Grand Lodge of this fraternity since 1894, was a member of its ritual committee in 1894-95, and was district deputy grand exalted ruler of northern Ohio, in 1896, and is otherwise prominent and influential in the fraternity. He has contributed much to papers and other publications of the Elks, and has been called upon to deliver memorial addresses before many lodges of the order in Ohio and other states. Since February 10, 1919, Mr. Leahy has been a member of the League to Enforce Peace, and he was a member of the platform committee of the Great Lakes Congress for the League of Nations (to promote peace), held at Chicago in 1919. Mr. Leahy is a loyal and effective advocate of the principles of the demo- cratic party and has been active in campaign service from the time of attain- ing his legal majority, though he has never sought political office. He and his family are zealous communicants of the Catholic Church.
On the 23d of October, 1893, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Leahy to Miss Marie S. Lawler, who was born at Steubenville, Ohio, and whose parents, Michael and Mary (Devine) Lawler, were born in Ire- land, and their descent is also traced through the lines of Colla da Chrioch, to Milesius of Spain. Mr. and Mrs. Leahy have two daughters: Ellen M. is the wife of William J. Harshaw, of Cleveland, and they have one son, William A .; and Emma Louise, the second daughter, remains at the . parental home.
HENRY G. SCHAEFER is one of the native sons of Cleveland who have here won high place in connection with industrial and commercial enter- prise and who have stood exponent of most loyal and progressive citizen- ship. He is vice president and general manager of the Gustav Schaefer Wagon Company, which contributes materially to the prestige of Cleve- land as a manufacturing and distributing center.
Mr. Schaefer was born in Cleveland on October 4, 1878, and his appre- ciation and loyalty to his native city has been shown not only in his con- tinuous residence here, his association with business affairs of important order and his general spirit of enterprise but also in his marked civic lib- erality and progressiveness. His father, Gustav Schaefer, has been one
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of the well known and highly esteemed citizens of the west side of Cleve- land for more than half a century, and he is now one of the substantial and venerable citizens of the Ohio metropolis.
Gustav Schaefer was born at Willmenrode, Nassau, Germany, in June, 1845, and while still a school boy he there worked in his father's wagon shop. At the age of fifteen years he initiated a four years' apprenticeship to the blacksmith's trade, and at the age of nineteen years he was the owner of a shop in his home town. He carefully saved his earnings, and thus he was not without a measure of financial fortification when he left his native land, in 1866, shortly after the celebration of his twenty-first birthday anni- versary, he severed the home ties and set forth to establish himself in the United States. He landed in the port of New York City, and he passed two years in the national metropolis, where he readily found employment in various carriage shops and factories. In 1868 he came to Cleveland, and here he continued to work as a journeyman at his trade until 1880, when he formed a partnership with Henry Eckhart and engaged in the manufac- turing of carriages and wagons at 4180 Lorain Avenue. Seven years later this partnership was dissolved and the business was carried on by Gustav Schaefer until the year 1913. In this year the concern was incorporated and is now conducted under the title of the Gustav Schaefer Wagon Com- pany, and is now one of the large concerns of its kind in Ohio. From the beginning the enterprise was based on excellence of products and fair and honorable dealings, and expansion was a matter of natural sequence. Gustav Schaefer, the founder, still retains the office of president of the company, though he retired from the active management in the year of the company's incorporation. A resourceful, industrial and reliable business man and loyal citizen, he has wrought well in all of the relations of life and com- mands secure place in popular respect. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Maschmeyer, was born in Hanover, Germany, and was a young woman when, after the death of her parents, she came to the United States, her marriage having occurred within a short time after her arrival in Cleve- land, and she being now (1923) in her seventy-sixth year. Mr. and Mrs. Schaefer are devout communicants of the Lutheran Church.
The earlier educational discipline of Henry G. Schaefer was acquired in the Lutheran parochial schools and was supplemented by a course in business college. He then found employment in his father's establishment, and he has been closely identified with the development and upbuilding of the business, of which he has been the executive head since 1913. The Gustav Schaefer Wagon Company has kept pace with modern business, and its extensive plant is now largely given over to the manufacturing of automobile bodies, besides which the company controls a substantial busi- ness in the distribution of automobile tires. The present main building of the plant is a four-story brick structure and was erected in 1914, at 4166-4180 Lorain Avenue. In 1918 the company erected a modern brick factory building of one-story and 175 by 50 feet in dimensions, this being situated on Fulton Court, in the rear of the main building. This second building is utilized principally for the pressing-on of Goodrich solid motor- truck tires, for which the Schaefer Company are sole distributors in Cuya- hoga County. The same building also figures as headquarters for the metal department, which is fully equipped for hammering and forming
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aluminum to be used as panels on motor-bus bodies. Here also is the machine shop for the handling of all general work, its mechanical equip- ment being of the most approved and modern order. In this department is handled much of the work pertaining to the manufacturing of the Schaefer power winches, power log-loaders and roll-off lumber bodies, which constitute an important part of the output of the establishment. In 1920 the company purchased 367 feet of frontage on Train Avenue, the iand extending back to the tracks of the New York Central Railroad. On this site was erected a three-story brick building and two lumber-storage buildings, each 50 by 150 feet in dimensions. Here has been supplied also a railroad siding adequate to handle from six to eight cars simultaneously. The lumber department of the business is now centered at this location, and here the Schaefer Company has (spring of 1924) in storage more than 1,000,000 feet of first-quality hardwood lumber, all air-seasoned. The company does not permit the use of any kiln-dried lumber in any of its manufacturing, and the organization as a whole exemplifies the high stand- ards set by the honored founder of the business. In 1921 the company erected a second building on Fulton Court, and this is used for the park- ing of the automobiles of officials and employes of the company. No labor troubles have ever come to this concern, though its policy has always been in the operating of open American shops. Many of its employes have been in its service more than thirty years, and this statement bears its own significance.
Henry G. Schaefer has at all times manifested lively interest in the civic and material welfare of his native city, and has shown this in his loyal civic stewardship. He was largely influential in bringing about the holding of the exposition in Edgewater Park in 1918, and was president of the organ- ization which brought this project to success. In 1918 he was president of the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, and as president of the Lorain Busi- ness Association he was instrumental in providing the "white-way" lighting system for the west side of the city. In January, 1921, Mr. Schaefer was elected president of the Lutheran Hospital Association, and in this office he was a leader in the movement that resulted in the erection of the fine new hospital building, which was dedicated in July, 1922, $325,000 having been expended for building and equipment of this noble and modern insti- tution, which has always been self-sustaining and which gives a service of invaluable order.
He was one of the organizers and is president of the Prudential Savings & Loan Company, which initiated business December 1, 1920, one of the chief functions of this corporation being in the assisting of worthy persons to build for themselves desirable homes, the company financing such laud- able enterprises and giving a general supervision to the building of the houses for its clients. The assets of this progressive corporation are already in excess of $400,000. Mr. Schaefer is one of the active and valued mem- bers of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, the local Kiwanis Club, the Cleveland Automobile Club, the American Automobile Association, and the Ohio Motor Truck Club. He and his wife are communicants of the Lutheran Church. Mrs. Schaefer is a daughter of the late John and Henrietta Krueger, of Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. Schaefer have one daughter, Hilda, and she is the wife of
I. R. n" Ling
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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
William E. Strauss, who is associated with the Gustav Schaefer Wagon Company.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN R. McQUIGG is not only a representative member of the bar of the City of Cleveland but has also honored his native State of Ohio through his distinguished military service, especially as an officer of engineers in active service overseas in the World War. He now holds the rank of brigadier-general in the Ohio National Guard.
General McQuigg was born on a farm at Dalton, near Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio, on the 5th of December, 1865, and is a son of the late Samuel and Jane (Mckinney) McQuigg. Samuel McQuigg was born in Ireland and was six years old at the time of the family immigration to the United States. His active career was one of close and successful identification with the farming industry in Wayne County, Ohio. At the time of his death, in 1903, he owned one of the best farms in that agricultural region.
The invigorating influences of the home farm environed the childhood and early youth of young McQuigg. He attended the district school during the winter months and helped with the work of the farm during the summer seasons. Finally he profited by the advantages of the high school at Wooster, and thereafter completed the regular four years' course at Wooster University, from which he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the class of 1888.
He passed a part of that year and also of the following year as a student in the law department of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and then entered the National Law School in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, where he completed the work of the senior year, be- sides doing post-graduate work, and stood third in his class at the time of his graduation in 1890. Immediately thereafter he returned to Ohio, and on the 5th of June, 1890, was admitted to the bar of his native state. On the 3rd of February, 1903, he was admitted to practice in the United States Circuit Court for the Northern district of Ohio, and later he gained similar recognition in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals.
On the 4th of October, 1890, Mr. McQuigg formed a partnership with George B. Riley for the general practice of law and this association has continued to the present time ; the firm of Riley & McQuigg having built up a large, important and representative law business and having from the beginning maintained its offices in the City of Cleveland.
On February 16, 1892, Mr. McQuigg was married to Miss Gertrude W. Imgard, daughter of August Imgard of Wooster, Ohio. They have two children, Pauline and Donald C.
While still active in the work of his profession, General McQuigg gives the major part of his time to directing the affairs of the Windermere Sav- ings and Loan Company, which he organized in 1914 and of which he is now president. He has other important business and financial interests in his home city.
General McQuigg is a salwart republican and has been active and in- fluential in political and general civic affairs. In 1907 he was elected mayor of East Cleveland, and in this municipal office he served three consecutive terms, retiring December 31, 1913.
Though prominent and successful in his profession and in connection
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with business affairs, it is as a soldier that General McQuigg has won his greatest distinction and incidentally brought honor to his city and native state. In 1890, the year of his admission to the bar, he became a member of the Ohio National Guard and was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Fifth Ohio Infantry. In 1892 he became a member of the Cleveland Grays and in this command he served seven years as private, corporal, sergeant and first sergeant. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, in 1898, he assisted in organizing the Ohio Battalion of Engineers. This command was mustered into the nation's service as part of the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The future general was commissioned captain and as such served from July 7, 1898, until March 23d of the following year, when he was mustered out with his regiment. After the close of the Span- ish war, McQuigg reorganized the Battalion of Engineers of the Ohio National Guard and for fourteen years, with the rank of major, served as commander of that splendid battalion. In 1912 he was promoted to lieu- tenant-colonel.
During the winter of 1916-17 Colonel McQuigg served on the Mexican border as lieutenant colonel of a provisional regiment of engineers, and when the nation became actively involved in the World War in April, 1917. Colonel McQuigg promptly turned over his law business to his partner and recruited his engineer battalion to a regiment of engineers subsequently known as the One Hundred and Twelfth Engineers, of which he was com- missioned colonel. The command was mobilized at Camp Sheridan, Ala- bama, as the One Hundred and Twelfth United States Engineers, Thirty- seventh Division. On the 23rd of June, 1918, the regiment sailed from Newport News, Virginia, for overseas service. It arrived ât Brest, France, on the 5th of the following month. With his command Colonel McQuigg was at Bourmont, Haute-Marne on the 10th of that month. July 24th to September 18th he was with his regiment in the Baccarat Sector. On the night of September 25th the regiment was in position south of Avocourt and on the morning of September 26, 1918, participated in the general advance that marked the beginning of the great Meuse-Argonne Offensive. From the Argonne, Colonel McQuigg was sent to the hospital. After his recovery he rejoined his command which was then in Belgium. The Colonel made a record of loyal and efficient service with the American Expedition- ary Forces, remained in France until after the close of the war and received his honorable discharge at Washington, District of Columbia, January 17, 1919.
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