USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, (Vol. 3) > Part 32
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Francis A. Shepherd grew up on the old farm near Harlem Springs, as
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a boy attended district schools, and was also a student in Harlem Springs College. He was a student there about three years, leaving his studies to take charge of the home farm after the death of his father. Mr. Shepherd had five years of practical farm experience, an experience that has not been without value to his subsequent career.
In 1892 he came to Cleveland, and after graduating from the Euclid Avenue Business College, bought a half interest in a lumber business and for a number of years was actively connected with the firm of Holmes & Shepherd, lumber dealers. In the meantime he was a student of law in the office of the late Amos Dennison, and was admitted to the bar in 1900. During that portion of his life when he was a practicing attorney Mr. Shep- herd served as city attorney of the Village of South Brooklyn, and had much to do with initiating and completing the village's first public improve- ments, including street paving and sewerage.
In 1902 he and Vernon R. Andrews organized the Home Savings & Banking Company of South Brooklyn. Mr. Shepherd became secretary and treasurer and active manager of the business, and was mainly respon- sible for its early growth and substantial prosperity. In 1916 the name was changed to the Home Savings & Trust Company, and since 1920 Mr. Shepherd has been president of the institution. This is one of the largest banking and financial institutions in the south and west sides of Cleveland. Besides being an able banker and active citizen Mr. Shepherd was a member of the board of directors of the Cleveland Chamber of In- dustry two years, and a member since its organization, and is a charter member of the Cleveland Bankers' Club and the Southwestern Business Men's Club. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Brooklyn Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. Fraternally he is affiliated with Laurel Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons ; Cleveland Chapter, Royal Arch Masons ; Glenn Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Riverside Lodge, Knights of Pythias.
Mr. Shepherd married Miss Olive C. Kelsey, of California. Her father, J. W. Kelsey, for a number of years lived in Medina and Sandusky coun- ties, Ohio, and moved from there to the Middle West and thence to the Pacific Coast. He was a successful educator, but entered the ministry soon after his marriage, and is still active in the ministry in California, though eighty-three years of age. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd are : Marian J., a senior at Wooster College ; Helen K., also a senior at Wooster ; and Francis Vernon, in high school.
WILLIAM ELI FUTCH. Among Cleveland's financial and business insti- tutions none have brought more fame to that city than the first bank in America organized and founded by labor, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Co-Operative National Bank, which was established November 1, 1920, by members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and while its management is in the hands of men of expert and successful banking experience, several of the executive officers have long been officially identified with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. While the bank has been in existence less than three years, its resources total over $23,000,000.
One of the vice presidents of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
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Co-Operative National Bank is William Eli Futch, who for many years has been an official of the Brotherhood and is an old time railroad man.
Mr. Futch was born on a farm in Bryant County, Georgia, March 12, 1860, in a locality isolated from all towns and railroad centers. His parents were William and Amy Adalaide (Spiers) Futch. His maternal grand- mother was Mary O'Quinn, whose ancestors came from Ireland. His great- grandfather, Onesymus Futch, was, according to the family tradition, a native of Holland. His grandfather was Eli Futch, an extensive planter and slave holder before the war. Eli Futch married Mary Wright, a direct descendant of the first Colonial governor of Georgia.
William Futch, father of the Cleveland banker, was reared on his father's plantation, and served throughout the period of the Civil war in the Confederate army. After the war he abandoned farming and became a merchant at Brunswick, Georgia, where he continued in business until his death in 1872 during a yellow fever epidemic. He was a very devout Baptist and a member of the Masonic Order. His family consisted of three sons and three daughters, William E. being second in age, and five of them still living.
William Eli Futch spent his boyhood at Brunswick, Georgia. He was twelve years of age when his father died, and that event put an end to his further schooling except what education has come to him in liberal quantities through practical experience with men and affairs. His father left his business in such condition that it paid nothing to the family after all obliga- tions were satisfied. William E. Futch, therefore, had to become the prac- tical head of a family of seven, and from that time forward his career was one of hard labor and he unselfishly devoted his time and earnings to the benefit of the family for some years. On reaching his majority he qualified as a locomotive engineer, and he had charge of a locomotive on the Plant System of Railways in Georgia for a period of fourteen years.
Mr. Futch was elected president of the Locomotive Engineers Mutual Life & Accident Insurance Association, an adjunct of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, when he was thirty-six years of age, and for over a quarter of a century has been officially identified with some of the great fraternal, beneficiary and cooperative enterprises fostered and supported by the organization of the locomotive engineers. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and in addition to his post in the bank at Cleveland, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Pension Associa- tion and is vice president and director of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Building Association.
Mr. Futch is secretary of the National Fraternal Congress of America. In Masonry he is affiliated with all the degrees and orders except the supreme honorary thirty-third degree. He is a member of the Masonic Club and the City Club of Cleveland.
Mr. Futch is married, and he and his wife became the parents of seven children, five of whom are living. His oldest daughter, Ethyl Adalaide, is a practicing attorney, having been admitted to the bar in Ohio, and is the wife of Ian M. Ross, also an attorney. Mr. Futch's second daughter is married. His first two sons died in early childhood. His third son is a graduate in medicine and surgery from the University of Michigan. His
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third daughter, a widow with one son, is an employe of the Cleveland Trust Company. His youngest child and son is a student in the Staunton Military Academy at Staunton, Virginia. Mr. Futch's aged mother, now eighty-six, is also one of his family circle.
JUNIUS HARVEY MINTON is one of the firm of Dresser-Minton Com- pany, engineers and contractors, who have handled an important volume of general construction and building work in Cleveland and elsewhere. Mr. Minton is a well qualified engineer, having spent several years in rail- road work before coming to Cleveland.
He was born in Virginia, of an old family of that historic common- wealth. The Mintons came from England in 1700, and for many genera- tions have been represented chiefly in planting and farming. Junius Harvey Minton was born at Smithfield, Virginia, December 4, 1885, son of Junius Harvey and Susan (Chapman) Minton. His parents were also natives of Smithfield, and his mother is still living.
Mr. Minton was educated in the grammar and high schools of his native Virginia town, and is a graduate of the Virginia Polytechnic Insti- tute, where he completed the course leading up to the degree Batchelor of Science in 1907. Soon after leaving college he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, beginning as a rodman in the engineering department, was promoted to draftsman and eventually was senior assistant engineer. His service was with the Pennsylvania lines from Pittsburgh west. After leaving the Pennsylvania Railroad Mr. Minton was with the United States Steel Corporation in the raw materials department, and in 1920 came to Cleveland, where for one year he was vice president of the C. R. Cummins Company. In 1921 he became associated with Mr. Dresser in the Dresser-Minton Company.
While with the Pennsylvania Railway Company he was designer for a number of railway freight and engine terminals. He was in the railroad service during the World war, and consequently his work was regarded as of first essential importance in that capacity, rather than as a soldier in the field. Mr. Minton is a member of the Engineering Society of Western Pennsylvania, of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce and the University Club of Pittsburgh.
He married Miss Elizabeth Cadman, daughter of A. W. and Kate (Kennedy) Cadman, of Pittsburgh. They have one daughter, Elizabeth.
JOHN MATTESON, who has given nearly forty years of effective service to Cuyahoga County, where he now holds a responsible position in the office of the county treasurer, has been a resident of the county since his early childhood, was here reared and educated, and has seen Cleveland advance from the status of a minor city to that of a populous and beautiful metropolis. In the city and county he has a wide acquaintanceship, and it may consistently be said that the number of his friends is equally large.
On the North Sea, in the Province of Holstein, John Matteson was born June 24, 1852, his native province having been a part of Denmark but having passed to the governmental control of Germany in 1844. Mr. Matteson is a son of John Matteson, and the family name of his mother was Lohmeyer. In 1854, when he was about two years old, the family immigrated to the
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United States, and six weeks elapsed ere the sailing vessel completed the voyage across the Atlantic and the family landed at historic old Castle Garden in the Port of New York City. The first five years were passed at Westerly, a village about twenty miles distant from Albany, New York, and then. in 1859, removal was made to Cleveland. Mr. Matteson well remembers the incidents of this momentous journey of his boyhood, the same having been made by way of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, the line of which then entered Cleveland on a trestle work of spiles in Lake Erie, a condition that caused wonderment to the observative boy. The family home was established in that part of the south side of Cleveland that was then known as Rockport and later as University Heights. The district now constitutes an integral part of the City of Cleveland, the limits of which on the south extended only to Erie Street (now East Ninth Street) at the time when the Matteson family here located. Cleveland then had a population of about 40,000 west of the river, extending to Gordon Avenue, a district at that time known as Ohio City, and from Gordon on to Highland was the district designated West Cleveland. Mr. Matteson advances the statement that in that period West Cleveland was governed by the trustees of Rockport. At the time when University Heights made its initial efforts to become a part of Cleveland there were only two bridges connecting that section with the city-one at Ohio City and the other at Detroit Street.
Mr. Matteson gained his early education principally in the public schools, and as a boy he entered the employ of H. P. Hadlow, a gardener and fruit grower. With other boys he there picked fruit, dug vegetables, weeded gardens and did such other work as was assigned to him. He fre- quently accompanied his employer to the Cleveland market, which was at that time situated on Ontario Street, where now are the stores of the May Company, Southworth, Bailey and Richardson Brothers. Mr. Hadlow, the employer, there had a market stand at a point opposite the present establish- ment of Richardson Brothers, and when the city built and equipped the new market he there established a market stall. One of the duties of young Matteson in the early days was to deliver vegetables at the Union Depot, where Russell & Wheeler then conducted the dining room, and he had customers also on Bousc, Seneca, Bond and Superior streets, as well as Euclid Avenue. He delivered vegetables also to homes that stood on the present site of the City Hall and the Cuyagoha County Courthouse.
After leaving the employ of Mr. Hadlow nineteen years of effective service were given by Mr. Matteson in the employ of the Lanson-Sessions Company, and he then took a position in the office of the county treasurer. He has continuously been in the service of the county during the long inter- vening period of thirty-three years, and during a part of the interval was in the office of the county auditor. Mr. Matteson is a dimitted member of the Knights of Pythias, and passed the various official chairs in that fraternal order.
The year 1881 recorded the marriage of Mr. Matteson, at Buffalo, New York, to Miss Katharine M. Welz, who was born on Johnson Street in the City of Cleveland. Of this union have been born three sons and one daughter : Lewis C., the eldest son, married Miss May O'Leary, and they have one son, Jack L. John F. remains a bachelor and is a resident of
Vol. III-16
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Cleveland. Paul L. was one of seven persons killed in a railroad accident in California, where, on the line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the engine and seven cars of his train were thrown from the track. Jasmine, the only daughter, is the wife of William A. Cochran, and their one child is a daughter, Marian L.
JOHN WILLIAM LATIMER has made a record of large and resourceful achievement in connection with business enterprise of broad scope, and he is now established independently in business in Cleveland and other cities as a selling engineer, dealing in asbestos products, his home office headquarters being in the Marshall Building in Cleveland, while his residence is in the attractive suburban city of Lakewood. He also has offices in Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan.
Mr. Latimer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 15, 1881, and is a son of George E. and Mary K. (Bernhardt) Latimer. The Latimer family is of sterling English-Scotch lineage, and the subject of this review is a direct descendant of Archbishop Latimer, of Canterbury, England. George E. Latimer was a skilled mechanic, and was superintendent in charge of a large mill in the City of Parkersburg, West Virginia, at the time of his death, May 19, 1923, when sixty-seven years of age. His wife, who was born in Cincinnati, was fifty-three years of age at the time of her death, September 5, 1911. She was a daughter of John Frederick Bernhardt, who was born in Germany, and who served as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war from 1863 to the close of the conflict, he having been a member of the One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was for many years a prominent merchant tailor in the City of Cincinnati.
John W. Latimer received his early education in the public schools of Cincinnati, and by his own labors earned the money which enabled him to continue his studies until he had completed a course in the high school. His initial activities of independent order were represented in his work at the painter's trade, and at the age of seventeen years he was foreman of a gang of thirty-five workmen in this trade. Later he turned his attention to the building trades, with the idea of engaging eventually in business as a con- tractor and builder. He continued his activities in this line until the autumn of 1904, when he entered the employ of the great Johns-Manville, Inc., organization, one of the most important concerns in the handling of asbestos products in the United States. For this company he did construction work at Dayton, Ohio, and in February, 1905, he became a salesman for the concern in West Virginia, where also he had supervision of construction work for the company in the City of Charleston. In 1909 he was assigned the management of this company's sales and construction operations in the district comprising Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, with head- quarters at Huntington, West Virginia. In 1914 he was transferred to the Central district, Cleveland, Ohio, in charge of sales and selling engineering. He continued his effective administration in this capacity until October 1, 1921, when he resigned his position with Johns-Manville, Inc., to engage in business in an independent way. Under his own name he has since developed a substantial selling engineering business in the handling of asbestos and its allied products, and his business is constantly expanding in scope and importance in the installation of insulation of every description,
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besides which he handles general lines of asbestos products. Mr. Latimer is a member of the Cleveland Engineering Society and the Lakewood Country Club. He is a director of the Detroit Avenue Savings & Loan Company of Lakewood.
Mr. Latimer is affiliated with Lakewood Lodge No. 601, Free and Accepted Masons, his capitular Masonic affiliation being with Tyrian Chap- ter No. 13, Royal Arch Masons, at Charleston, West Virginia. He is a member of Holy Grail Commandery No. 70, Knights Templar, at Lake- wood, and in the Scottish Rite of Free Masonry he has received the thirty- second degree in the Consistory at Wheeling, West Virginia, in which state he is also a member of Beni Kedem Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Charleston.
June 1, 1905, recorded the marriage of Mr. Latimer and Miss Ethel Anna Pease, who was born at West Carrollton, Ohio, and who is a daughter of the late D. W. and Anna (LeCompte) Pease. Since the year 1914 Mr. Latimer has been a resident of Lakewood, Ohio.
ALBERT GEORGE DAYKIN, business leader and philanthropist, is asso- ciated with one of the largest and best known business establishments in Cleveland, the Daykin Brothers Company, manufacturers of plumbers' supplies, and of which he is manager.
Mr. Daykin is a native of Cleveland, son of the late James and Elizabeth (Hugell) Daykin. James Daykin was born on the River Swales, near Richmond, England, and was of the same family as Bishop Daykin, whose monument stands in the churchyard at Richmond. His wife, Elizabeth Hugell, was born at Richmond, England, and came from a collateral branch of the same family as that from which Gen. George Washington descended. James Daykin was an engineering contractor, and did some notable work in England, especially in the building of several large railway tunnels. He brought his family to the United States in 1855, locating in Cleveland, where he became a manufacturer of pumps and engines. He owned a factory on Columbus Road on the West Side, and continued at the head of this prosperous business the rest of his life. The factory is still operated by one of his sons.
Albert G. Daykin grew up on the West Side of Cleveland, attended the Hicks Street Public School, the West High School and the Spencerian Business College, and served an apprenticeship at the plumber's trade. Of the practical phases of the plumbing trade and the manufacture of the equipment used by the trade at least one of the Daykin brothers is an authority and master, and the business developed by them has become the largest establishment of its kind in Northern Ohio. The company has an average of about 100 skilled workers. Their products are distributed entirely through the jobbing trade, and the output of their plumbing supplies has a recognized standard wherever plumbing goods are used. There are seven brothers in the Daykin Brothers Company, and their business is a landmark in Cleveland.
Mr. Albert G. Daykin has never married, and has employed his accumu- lating wealth from a successful business career in practical philanthropy. Money to him has meant the opportunity to relieve suffering and restore the sick to usefulness and health. He has put in much time and thought
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in experimental investigation along lines of rehabilitating those broken down by ill health, and has a knowledge of all the various systems employed for curing disease, including such treatments as those used in electro-therapy and the various mineral cures. Again and again he has sought to restore the health of the poor after they had been given up by regular physicians, employing the best scientific methods without charge, and in this way his wealth has become an important source of practical philanthropy.
Recently Mr. Daykin bought the old Selden home, a landmark on the West Side, and has entirely renovated and, in fact, practically rebuilt it, making it a beautiful place for his own residence and also with special quarters and facilities for the treatment of the sick by scientific methods. He has introduced into the old home all the modern improvements and facilities, and it contains some exceptionally beautiful decorations. In this house are quarters suitable for his interesting selection of relics, including many rare pieces of jewelry, his hobby being the collection of cameos. He has also collected many pieces of fire arms. On the wall of one of the dens is an historical painting showing John Jacob Astor, the old fur trader, bartering with Indians in a location which is now Edgewater Park. This painting has been pronounced historically correct and is the only one on that subject in existence.
Mr. Daykin is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Industry, the Cleveland Yacht Club, the Masons, Elks and Odd Fellows.
FERDINAND JOHN CONRAD DRESSER is a civil and construction engineer whose experience has covered many states in the building of railroads and industrial plants. He is now senior member of the Dresser-Minton Com- pany, general engineers and contractors, with offices in the Arcade at Cleveland.
Mr. Dresser is a man of unusual attainments in his profession, and has made his career the basis of his individual efforts. He was born at Arcadia, Wisconsin, December 21, 1883, son of John and Anna (Kirschner) Dresser. His father, a native of Wisconsin, died leaving his widow with three small children. She was the daughter of a Lutheran minister. She was born in Germany, and was a child when her father came to this country and located in Wisconsin. Left a widow, she faced courageously the task of providing for and rearing and educating her children, and they have always been deeply grateful for the sacrifices she accepted and the work she did in giving them a start in life. Ferdinand John Conrad Dresser as a boy attended the public schools in his native Village of Arcadia. Subsequently he took a course in engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Leaving the university in 1904, he joined an engineering party as rodman for the Girard Construction Company. This company was then engaged in railroad work in Illinois. He was soon advanced from rodman to assistant engineer on location and construction for the Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary Rail- way, and continued in that post until 1908. During 1908-09 he was super- intendent of designing and construction of a large brick manufacturing plant for the Blair Clay Company. From 1909 to 1914 Mr. Dresser was in the service of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company as assistant engineer on location in Dakota and Iowa, in new line construction in Wis- consin, in the building of a new terminal at Milwaukee and Clinton, Iowa,
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and bridge, dock and reinforced concrete elevator work. On leaving the Chicago and Northwestern he was for a time superintendent of bridges for John Mausch, a contractor in railroad construction in Massachusetts, and during 1915-16 was superintendent of reinforced concrete buildings for the Turner Construction Company of New York City. From 1916 to 1921 Mr. Dresser was assistant general superintendent and later district manager in general charge of the Cleveland district for the Austin Com- pany, having charge of all the railroad work for that company, including the terminals at Logansport and Richmond, Indiana, and at Crestline and Columbus, Ohio.
During the World war period Mr. Dresser had personal supervision in general charge of the handling of over fifty contracts concerning the erec- tion of a number of buildings in record time, such as the New York Air Brake Plant erected in fifty days, the Dayton-Wright Areoplane Plant, built in thirty days, the Nordyke-Marmon Plant, also in thirty days, and a structure of the National Cash Register, built in thirty days.
Mr. Dresser on August 1, 1921, organized the Dresser-Minton Com- pany, engineers and contractors. The company has offices both in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Since January 1, 1919, Mr. Dresser has been representa- tive of the association of general contractors of America and the National Board of Jurisdictional Awards, a position bringing him into personal contact with all the large general contractors and engineers of the country. He is also president of the Cleveland Chapter of that association and of the Western Society of Engineers.
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