USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 3) > Part 30
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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
WILLIAM RIGELHAUPT, M. D., an able and successful physician and surgeon established in active general practice in Cleveland, was born in the City of Bela, Bohemia (now Czecho-Slavia), October 20, 1881, and is a son of the late Leo and Eva Rigelhaupt. In his youth Doctor Rigel-
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haupt received exceptional educational advantages, including those of the University of Budapest, Hungary, and the University of Jena, Germany. In the year 1906 he came to the United States and forthwith established his residence in Cleveland, where he joined his older brother, I. J., who had been for many years engaged in the retail drug business on the West Side of the city. Doctor Rigelhaupt entered the medical department of Western Reserve University where he was graduated, as a member of the class of 1911 with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He then returned to Europe, where he further fortified himself along professional lines by an effective post-graduate course in the great University of Vienna, Austria, and again, in 1923, was abroad for six months studying internal medicine. Since his return to Cleveland Doctor Rigelhaupt has built up a substantial and representative practice, and he is one of the leading physicians of the West Side of Cleveland. The doctor is a member of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine, the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is serving as a member of the staff of physicians and surgeons in the Lutheran Hospital,, is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, and is affiliated with Forest City Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
September 14, 1910, recorded the marriage of Doctor Rigelhaupt and Miss Sarah R. Alexander, daughter of Isador Alexander, of Cleveland.
JAMES H. McCALL is in the most significant degree one of the influen- tial and successful exponents of real-estate enterprise in the metropolitan district of Cleveland, and in connection with the development and progress of the city he has shown marked pre-vision and a confidence that has found expression in constructive action.
He is the founder and head of The J. H. McCall Company, one of the substantial and progressive real-estate concerns of Cleveland, with offices in the Sloan Building.
Mr. McCall was born at Londonderry, Guernsey County, Ohio, Janu- ary 16, 1877, and his father is now a successful representative of agricul- tural industry near New Concord, Muskingum County. The lineage of the McCall family traces back to staunch Scotch origin, and William McCall, great-grandfather of the subject of this review, became a citizen of Washington County, Pennsylvania, whence representatives of the family came to Ohio in 1850.
The public schools of his native place afforded James H. McCall his earlier education, he studied one year under the preceptorship of a private tutor, and thereafter attended Geneva College one year. His ambition for liberal education was further shown by his passing four years as a student in Muskingum College, at New Concord, and for a time he was a student in the Western Reserve Medical College. A fine sense of personal stewardship has characterized the entire career of Mr. McCall, who not only earned the funds that enabled him to attend college, but who also made his productive efforts count at the same time by earning enough likewise to pay off the mortgage of $1,000 on his father's farm.
Mr. McCall remained at the parental home until he was seventeen years of age, and his leaving was prompted by his determination to make his own way through college. He first went to Pittsburgh and became a sales-
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man for the American Tea Company. He won advancement to the position of general agent for this company, and retained the same eighteen months. He then passed a year in college, and during vacation periods sold stereo- scopic views in order to raise funds with which to continue his college course. While a college student he passed two winters in the South, where he visited the leading universities and colleges in soliciting for the Keystone View Company and in training new salesmen for that concern. While in college he started a college paper and acted as its editor. He also played four years on the football team, and was its manager in his senior year, besides which he took part in several oratorical contests.
In June, 1908, Mr. McCall took a position as salesman with the Green- lund-Kennerdell Company, a Cleveland real-estate concern, and after con- tinuing in this service about one year he accepted the position of manager of the real-estate department of the Garfield Bank, with which he continued his alliance nearly seven years, within which he gained comprehensive and accurate knowledge concerning real-estate values in Cleveland. While identified with the bank his service was largely comprised in the selling of houses, the effecting of ninety-nine-year realty leases, and the supervision of a general real-estate business. He had charge of the building and sale of a goodly number of single and two-family dwellings, as well as apartment houses. In 1916 he became associated in the organization and incorpora- tion of the McNutt-McCall Company, the business of which covered down-town real estate and also subdivisions. On the 3d of September, for the purpose of extending still further the scope and importance of his operations, Mr. McCall organized the J. H. McCall Company, of which he has since continued the progressive executive head and the service of which he has brought to the highest standard in every respect. It is not within the province of this circumscribed review to enter into details concerning the splendid business that has been developed and controlled by this representative real-estate organization, but is consistent to offer the following quotations from a comprehensive and appreciative newspaper article recently published :
"The success made by the J. H. McCall Company in Cleveland and its suburbs as sellers of improved homesites is the result of J. H. McCall and his associates having measured up to the requirements of the times, and in the realty field making selfish interest serve the interests of all- pointing the way for all to prosper. Mr. McCall may rightly be termed a constructive operator of suburban real estate, for it has been his policy, first, last and at all times not just to scheme up and plot off a parcel of property for an allotment, but to 'see it through,' improve it, and then go about interesting the right kind of people in locating and building their homes there. Mr. McCall has noticeably, in all his selections and improve- ments, stuck to the principal thoroughfares and main arteries of develop- ment, and through exercising vision and wisdom in taking on his land parcels, he has been favored with remarkable success."
Mr. McCall is an active member of the Cleveland Chamber of Com- merce, holds membership in the local Athletic, City and Advertising clubs, is a member of the Board of Trustees of Muskingum College, is a com- municant of Trinity Cathedral of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and is unswerving in his allegiance to the republican party. He finds his chief
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recreation in hunting, and he maintains a hunting camp on Lemon Bay, Florida, in a wild district thirty-five miles south of Sarasota.
WORCESTER REED WARNER was born at Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, May 16, 1846, and is a scion of sterling New England colonial stock. He received the advantages of the common schools, and as a youth served a thorough apprenticeship to the machinist's trade. From 1870 to 1880 he was foreman in the shops of the Pratt & Whitney Company, Hartford, Connecticut, where also he gave attention to the study of astronomy and other scientific branches, besides experi- menting in the construction of telescopes. In 1881 he and Ambrose Swasey established in Cleveland, Ohio, a modest plant for the manufac- turing of machine tools, and from this has been developed the large and important industrial enterprise now conducted under the title of the Warner & Swasey Company. In 1897 the Western University of Penn- sylvania conferred upon Mr. Warner the degree of Doctor of Mechanical Science. He has served as president of the American Society of Mechan- ical Engineers, and as president of the Civil Engineers Club of Cleveland and the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. He has membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the British Astro- nomical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, and various clubs and other social organizations. Mr. Warner is a trustee of Western Reserve University and also of the Case School of Applied Science, and is a director of leading financial institutions of Cleveland. He is a republican in political allegiance. Mr. Warner has been one of the builders of a great industrial enterprise in Cleveland, and concerning his achievement incidental mention is made on other pages, in the personal sketch of Ambrose Swasey, his associate in business.
LOUIS BLACK was a resident of Cleveland from his boyhood until the time of his death, and gained precedence as one of the representative business men and honored and influential citizens of the Ohio metropolis.
Colonel Black, as he was familiarly known, was born in Hungary, December 24, 1844, and in 1854 his parents established their residence in Cleveland, this having been the first Hungarian family in Cleveland. The father, Morris Black, was a sterling citizen who had much to do with promoting Hungarian immigration to Ohio, and he was one of the honored citizens of Cleveland at the time of his death, in 1864. Louis Black was ten years old when the family home was established in Cleveland, and here he received his youthful education. He was employed in a local mercantile establishment at the time when, in 1864, he enlisted for service in the Civil war, as a private in Company A, One Hundred Fifti- eth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. After the close of the war he resumed his association with business affairs in Cleveland. He became eventually the president of the Bailey Company, one of the most important mercantile concerns of the city, with a large department store and establishments devoted to the wholesale and retail trade in dry goods and house furnish- ings. In addition to being at the time of his death the president and treasurer of this company he was president and treasurer of the Acme Realty and the Bailey Realty Company ; vice president of the Building &
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Investment Company and the Superior Savings & Trust Company ; treas- urer of the Bailey-Young Company and the Sincere Realty Company ; vice president of the Tuscaloosa Cotton Company; and a director of the Central National Bank, the Cleveland Jewish Hospital Association, the Cleveland Realization Company, the Champont Realty Company, and the Acme Foundry Company.
Colonel Black was a most loyal and public-spirited citizen, served as city fire director and as a member of the city council, was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the local Rotary Club, held the rank of colonel in the Second Regiment of Knights of Pythias, and served as president of the Hungarian Benevolent Association. He and his wife celebrated in 1917 their golden wedding anniversary.
JOHN JOSEPH STANLEY, president of the Cleveland Street Railway Company and an influential member of the American Electric Railways Association, of which he was elected vice president in 1917, was born in Cleveland March 5, 1863, and here received the advantages of the public schools. As a young man he became associated with local street railway interests, and his alliance with this branch of public utility service has been continued during the intervening years. He has built many street railway systems, especially in the State of New York, and is a director of the Rochester Railway & Light Company, of Rochester, that state. In Cleveland he is a director of the Central National Bank, the Guardian Savings & Trust Company, and the Mutual Building & Invest- ment Company. He has membership in the Chamber of Commerce, the Union Club, the Country Club and the Cleveland Athletic Club. In 1885 he wedded Miss Rose Francis, and they have three daughters.
LEONARD COLTON HANNA, senior member of the firm of M. A. Hanna & Company, has been a prominent figure in Cleveland business affairs for nearly half a century, and is a brother of the late and distinguished Senator Mark A. Hanna, whose name is written large on the pages of Ohio and national history.
Leonard C. Hanna was born at New Lisbon, Ohio, November 30, 1850, and was reared and educated in Cleveland, which has been the central stage of his important business activities in the later years. In addition to being executive head of the great industrial business con- trolled by M. A. Hanna & Company, Mr. Hanna has financial and official alliance with the Superior Savings & Trust Company, the Guardian Savings & Trust Company, and the Union National Bank of Cleveland. He has membership in leading clubs and other civic organizations, and for eight years was commander of the Cleveland Gatling Gun Battery.
TOM LOFTIN JOHNSON, one of the most picturesque figures in business and public life in America, gave to Cleveland a greater measure of loyal and public-spirited service than can be outlined in any one review of his life and achievement. He was a millionaire when he assumed the office of mayor of Cleveland, and so closely and earnestly did he devote his time and thought to the interests of the city that his private business suf- fered, with the result that he was a comparatively poor man at the time
che & Sicher
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of his death, in 1911. His published work, "My Story," is to be found in all important libraries, and may be referred to by those who wish to study the life history of this really great and noble citizen.
Mr. Johnson was born at Georgetown, Kentucky, July 18, 1854, and was reared and educated in Indiana. He invented several street railway devices, and eventually acquired large street railway interests in Indian- apolis, Cleveland, Detroit and Brooklyn, besides having become an iron manufacturer in Cleveland. He was a democrat, was a member of Congress in 1891-95, and served four terms as mayor of Cleveland, 1901-10, his death having occurred April 10, 1911.
Tom L. Johnson was an idealist and a practical worker for the advance- ment of human kind. He was a leader in thought and action, and in Cleveland he did a great and noble service in kindling the fires of civic righteousness and common justice. As mayor of Cleveland he did more than any other man to bring about an equitable system of taxation, and his fight to obtain for the city a three-cent fare on street railways has become a part of national history. His life was marked by devotion to the common people. He worked that justice might prevail between the poor and the rich. He was a humanitarian of the highest type, and his name and memory shall be held in enduring honor in the Ohio metropolis, to the interests of which he devoted himself with bravery, ability, deter- mination and utter self-sacrifice.
JOHN G. FISCHER, one of the influential and public-spirited citizens of Cleveland, was born and reared in Cuyahoga County and has honored the same by his character and his achievement. He has served in various positions of public trust, including membership in the State Legislature, and has done much to advance the interests of his home city, county and state.
Mr. Fischer was born on the family homestead farm in Parma Town- ship, Cuyahoga County, on the 1st of January, 1861, and is a scion of the third generation of the Fischer family in Cuyahoga County. His grand- father, Michael Fischer, a native of Birne, near Wertzberg, Germany, was there a subject of Maximilian, the Austrian arch-duke who later became emperor of Mexico, and as he did not wish to rear his only son under the military reign and government of Maximilian, Michael Fischer decided to establish a home in the United States. His wife died in Germany, and thereafter he came alone to the United States and made settlement in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where he was later joined by his only son, who was born at the old family home in Germany, in the year 1832, and who was reared and educated in his native land, where he learned the butcher's trade. There was solemnized his marriage to Margaret Kleinholtz, and he, in company with his young wife, joined his father on the latter's farm in Parma Township, Cuyahoga County. John Fischer here became success- fully established in the livestock and wholesale meat business, in which he continued on the old home farm of his father until 1876, when he pur- chased forty-five acres of land in Rockport Township, where he continued in the same line of business until his sudden death in a railroad accident, while he was en route home after 'purchasing a carload of cattle in the Chicago market. After his tragic death his widow assumed charge of the
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estate, and with utmost solicitude cared for her three minor children, John G., Margaret (now deceased) and George, whom she reared and educated with utmost maternal devotion, the while she ably conserved the interests of the family estate. This noble and gracious woman remained a widow until her death, February 13, 1913, at the age of eighty-three years and eight months.
John G. Fischer gained his youthful education by attending the public schools of his native county and through discipline received under the direction of private tutors. He early decided to fit himself for the line of business with which his father had been identified, and thus, at the age of fourteen years, he entered the employ of a butcher and livestock dealer, who paid him $7 a month in the winter season and $9 in the summer. After about eighteen months of service in this connection Mr. Fischer found his advancement to be of rather negative order, his financial status having been shown in his indebtedness to his employer in the sum of 20 cents. He sized up the situation and made a change in his plans. He tied his small surplus of clothes in a red bandana handkerchief and then set forth on foot for the maternal home, four miles distant. Upon his arrival he informed his mother that he wished to engage in business for himself, and so implicit was her faith in him that she consented to lend him $400. He was then sixteen years of age, and with this financial reinforcement he engaged independently in the livestock business, in which he continued successfully in Cuyahoga County for the ensuing quarter of a century, save for the interval of 1884-1887, during which he held the position of man- ager of the George H. Hammond Company's packing plant at South Omaha, Nebraska.
Mr. Fischer made his debut in public office in the year 1888, when he was elected trustee of Rockport Township, said township now constituting the West Park district of the City of Cleveland. He continued his effective service in this office until 1894, when the township system of government was abolished and Rockport Township was incorporated as a village. Mr. Fischer was then elected a member of the board of education of Rock- port school division, and in this service he continued, without compensation, about fifteen years, during a considerable portion of which he was clerk of the board.
In 1900 Mr. Fischer became a member of the Cuyahoga County Republican Central Committee, as representative of the district west of the river, and after serving one year he was made secretary of the com- mittee, a position which likewise he retained one year. In 1902 he was appointed deputy state supervisor of elections in Cuyahoga County, and this position he held until January 1, 1904. In the November election of 1903 he was elected representative of his native county in the Lower House of the State Legislature, and he served during the Seventy-sixth General Assembly. In 1904 Mr. Fischer was elected a county commis- sioner, for a term of three years, and he continued the incumbent of this position, by successive reelections, until September, 1913.
As commissioner he was active in securing the necessary action in the board for building, under the good roads law, over 300 miles of brick and heavy duty type of roads in the county. While he was a member of the board and by his active support the new Superior High Level Bridge, the
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first in the state, costing over $4,000,000, was put under construction, the Denison Harvard Bridge, three-quarters of a mile in length, connecting the west and south sides of the city with the section of the city containing the great iron industries, which employ thousands of men, was constructed, the building of the new $6,000,000 courthouse, the pride of the city and county, was carried out. Mr. Fischer was chairman of the building com- mission for two years. While he was commissioner the Detroit and Rocky River Bridge, at the time the greatest concrete arch in the world, was con- structed. His name appears upon more bonds for public improvements than that of any other man that has served in the county, and in all his long service upon the board there was never a criticism from any civic or public body as to the expenditures or as to the carrying forward of these contracts, and there was never a contract carried out that did not leave a surplus in the fund set apart for that especial purpose.
While a member of the Seventy-sixth General Assembly of the Ohio Legislature Mr. Fischer introduced and ably championed the first good roads bill in the state, the same providing for a department of public high- ways. This bill was made a law, and in 1920, moved by a desire to bring about an amendment of this law, Mr. Fischer became a candidate for reelection to the House of Representatives. He was elected and in the ensuing legislative session his efforts resulted in the supplementing of the above mentioned law in such a way as to vest in the department of high- ways the power to bring about the elimination of all grade crossings of railroads over public highways in the state, this amendment to the law having passed the House but having been lost in the Senate. Mr. Fischer was the author of several other bills of somewhat minor importance, and these came to enactment. One of these laws gives to railroads further power of permanent domain, the purpose being to lessen the cost of high- ways by giving railroads the right-of-way to lands containing deposits of gravel, sand, marl and asphalt in the state. In the election of November, 1922, Mr. Fischer was returned to his seat in the State Legislature, and again introduced the grade crossing elimination law, and it was passed and became a law in April, 1923.
In 1914 Mr. Fischer initiated the purchasing of real estate for the Belt Terminal Realty Company, and he was successful in securing the right-of-way for the Belt Line Railroad west of the river, in Cuyahoga County, in the interest of the New York Central Lines. He purchased in this connection many farms that are being held for future development.
After having acquired ownership of the old family homestead Mr. Fischer in 1916 sold forty acres of this tract, but reserved the five acres on which stood the old home of his mother. Here he erected his present modern house, which is probably one of the finest of the many handsome residences in the West Park section of Cleveland.
Mr. Fischer takes deep interest in all that tends to advance the civic and material interests of his home city and county, is a valued member of the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, of the West Side Advisory Committee, of the Cleveland Trust Company, and holds membership in the Western Reserve Club, and is one of the oldest members of Tippecanoe Club.
The year 1884 recorded the marriage of Mr. Fischer and Miss Eliza- beth Colbrunn, who was born in what is now the West Park division of
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Cuyahoga County, February 2, 1866, and who is a daughter of the late Frederick A. Colbrunn, her father having been born in Germany and his father having become a pioneer settler in Cuyahoga County. In conclusion is given a brief record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Fischer : John Carl, born in 1886, was graduated in engineering and mining at the Case School of Applied Science, later read law and was admitted to the bar, and he is now a successful paving and bridge contractor in Cuyahoga County. He married Bessie Kennedy, and they have three children : John G. (II), Richard H. and Jane. George Herman, born in 1889, is a graduate of the Spencerian Business College in Cleveland, and is now (1923) a deputy in the office of the treasurer of Cuyahoga County. He married Miss Pearl Ketcham, of New London, Ohio. Pearl Margaret, the only daughter, born in 1892, is the wife of Herman L. Christensen, engaged in the greenhouse business at Rocky River, Cuyahoga County, and they have two children, Irene and Laverne.
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