USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. II, Pt. 1 > Part 34
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For many years Mr. Johnson conducted a successful auctioneering bus- iness, being well qualified by nature for the same, having a fine, resonant voice and the ready wit and genial manner associated with the profession. He was a member of the Allemania Club; the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel and of Eureka Lodge, No. 41, A. O. U. W. Upon the records of the Chamber of Commerce appears a testimonial as to the high esteem in which he was regarded by that body.
Mr. Johnson is survived by a widow, two sons-Samuel J., Jr., and David J .- and one daughter, Mrs. S. M. Rosenthal. His burial was in the beautiful United Jewish Cemetery on Walnut Hills. Mr. Johnson in every relation of life was an upright man and he was sincerely mourned by all who knew him. His memory is perpetuated by many acts of kindness and many deeds of charity.
STEPHEN COOPER AYRES, A. M., M. D.
STEPHEN COOPER AYRES, A. M., M. D., is a prominent member of a pro- fession honored the world over and a leading representative of the skilled body of physicians and surgeons in which Cincinnati takes a just pride. Dr. Ayres was born in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, and is a son of the late Dr. H. P. Ayres, who removed to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1842. For nearly 33 years Dr. H. P. Ayres was a distinguished practitioner in that State, became president of the Indiana State Medical Society and a valued member of the American Medical Association, and was also a frequent contributor to the medical literature of that State.
Our subject spent his boyhood at Fort Wayne and was educated in the city schools. He then entered Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, and was graduated at that institution in 1861, just in time to join his classmates in enlisting in the company of O. J. Dodds, of the 20th Reg., Ohio Vol. Inf., and with it served in West Virginia. Upon his return home, he was pros-
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trated for a time with typhoid fever and upon his recovery, during 1862-63, attended lectures at the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati. In the spring of 1863 he was appointed acting medical cadet at Hospital No. 8, Louisville, Kentucky, and after his graduation at the Medical College of Ohio, in 1864, accepted an appointment as acting assistant-surgeon, United States Volunteers, in the Cumberland Hospital, at Nashville, Tennessee, and served there with the greatest efficiency, for the following year. His commission as assistant surgeon, United States Volunteers, was received in 1865, after a severe examination and he was then assigned to duty at New Orleans and was placed in charge of the United States Barracks Hospital, and served there until honorably mustered out in February, 1866, when in recognition of his faithful and efficient services he was given the brevet rank of captain.
In September, 1866, Dr. Ayres became a student under Dr. Elkanalı Williams, the best ophthalmologist of Cincinnati, and made a close study of the diseases of the eye and ear. In 1867 he entered into special eye and ear practice at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1870 he went abroad for the pur- pose of still closer study at the eye and ear clinics of London and Vienna. Upon his return, he located in Cincinnati and entered into partnership with his old preceptor, Dr. Elkanah Williams. an association which continued until the latter's death in 1888. For a number of years he served as oculist on the staff of the Cincinnati Hospital, resigning in 1883. He served for several years as oculist on the staff of St. Mary's Hospital, and is now on the staff of the Protestant Episcopal Hospital for Children, and also fills the chair of ophthalmology and otology in the Medical College of Ohio (now the Medical Department of the University of Cincinnati). He was chair- man of the section of ophthalmology at the meeting of the American Med- ical Association at Nashville, Tennessee, in May, 1890. Dr. Ayres is a member of the Ohio Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and also of Fred C. Jones Post, No. 401, Grand Army of the Republic. Dr. Ayres is a member of the Ohio State Medical Society, and of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine. He is also a member of the American Ophthalmological and Otological Association, and is a member of the International Ophthalmological Congress.
In October, 1873, Dr. Ayres was married to Louise McLean, eldest daughter of the late S. B. W. McLean, an old and prominent citizen of Cin-
HON. EDWARD J. DEMPSEY.
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cinnati, and the following named children were born to them: Wylie Mc- Lean; Rowan; Robert Williams; and Louise and Gertrude, who reside at home. Wylie McLean was graduated from Yale in 1897, and from the Medical College of Ohio in 1900. After serving for a year and a half as interne in the Cincinnati Hospital, he completed his education at Vienna, making a specialty of diseases of the eye and ear. He is at present associated in practice with his father in this line of special work. Rowan, who was graduated from Sheffield Scientific School (Yale) in 1898, is a mining and civil engineer in Mexico. Robert Williams was graduated from Sheffield Scientific School (Yale) in 1903.
HON. EDWARD J. DEMPSEY.
HON. EDWARD J. DEMPSEY, recently one of the judges of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, is the third son of the late John Shiel and Anna ( Brere- ton) Dempsey, Irish pioneers of the city of Cincinnati, of which city Judge Dempsey himself is a native, and in which he has spent practically his entire life. Judge Dempsey's parents settled in the Queen City in the year 1848: a few years later found the elder Dempsey residing at the southeast corner of Seventh street and Broadway, in what in those days was known as the "'bloody" 13th Ward of Cincinnati, and conducting there a general retail grocery store, and it was there, on September 26, 1858, that Judge Dempsey was born. In the year of Edward's birth, Judge Dempsey's father moved his business and residence to the southeast corner of Sixth and Plum streets. This was in the very heart of the Sixth Street Market space, a locality noted in the annals of early Cincinnati as the old "Fly-Market," and whose denizens were known as the "Fly-Market Rangers." This locality, while it lost much of the fame which came to it through the "Fly-Market Rangers," subsequently took upon itself a new glory in that, during the Civil War and the years fol- lowing, it became the center of what was then considered "the life" and "the strenuosity" of Cincinnati, and in more recent years it has added new laurels to its crown in the fact that it was the original abiding place of the principal leaders of that political organization which has for the last 20 years con- trolled the destinies of the Queen City of the West. It was in this neighbor- hood and its environments that Judge Dempsey spent his infancy, youth and
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young manhood, under the watchful care and strict discipline of his father, upon whom alone was devolved the awful responsibility of guiding aright the life steps of not only the young Edward, but also of three young brothers and a sister, who had been orphaned by the death of their mother in January, 1866. How well that old father fulfilled his obligations to his children is shown in the records, not only of Judge Dempsey, but also of the other mem- bers of his father's family.
Judge Dempsey's primary education was had in the Catholic parochial schools of Cincinnati, terminating with a five-year course in the locally re- nowned Cathedral school under the tutorship of W. J. Russell and C. J. O'Donnell. After this, Judge Dempsey entered, at his own choice and re- quest, the public schools of Cincinnati, beginning with the intermediate course under the direction of John B. Peaslee, subsequently superintendent of the schools of the city, and finishing, under Hons. E. W. Coy and Jacob H. Bromwell, a regular four-years course at the more than locally celebrated "Old Hughes High School," graduating, with fair distinction from this latter institution in June, 1875.
Judge Dempsey's' father intended him for a mercantile career, but the son's inclinations were to the law, and the latter's wishes, after much dis- cussion between father and son, prevailed. In December, 1875, the father placed his son, as a student of the law, with the well known firm of Mallon & Coffey, composed of the late Judge Mallon and John Coffey. For four years young Dempsey assiduously pursued his studies under the guidance and counsel of his two preceptors, Judge Mallon and Mr. Coffey, and while, : of course, much of Judge Dempsey's subsequent progress and success is due to his own ability and industry, still, as Judge Dempsey himself says, no young man had greater incentive and stimulant to learn, to progress and to succeed than had he, because of the fatherly interest which genial Judge Mallon took in his daily studies and of the delight with which Judge Mallon smoothed out the rough places for him, not only in the abstract principles of the law, but also in the application of those principles to questions that daily arose in the office or in the moot courts of the law school. And then add to this a constant association with jolly John Coffey, the wit and the life of the Cincinnati bar, a daily attendance with him on the courts, frequent par- ticipation with him in the trials of cases, discussions with him daily, aye hourly, of the points arising in the cases, practical instruction by him and with
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him in the routine and methods to be pursued in connection with the work and the duties that called him to the various county offices, such as the filing of papers and pleadings with the clerk of courts, the examination of titles in the recorder's office, and matters of like nature, and then, as Judge Demp- sey says, if after four years of effort and assistance of this kind, a young man failed to become a fair practical lawyer, the failure was because of himself ; in other words, it was not "in him" to become a lawyer. In 1877, during his period of apprenticeship with Mallon & Coffey, Judge Dempsey entered the Law School of the old Cincinnati College; there he pursued the regular two-years course of instruction under the tutelage of such eminent men as the late Governor George Hoadly, Judge M. F. Force, Hon. Rufus King, Hon. H. M. Morrill, and Governor J. W. Stevenson, of Kentucky.
In April, 1879, and before he had reached his majority, Judge Demp- sey was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School at the head of his class of 81 students, and as the winner of the first prize given to the one who pased the best examination upon the rules and principles of the common law. This class of 1879 was a class noted in the annals of the old Cincinnati Law School for the professional as well as the political success of its mem- bers, and included in its roll such men as Hons. J. C. Harper, S. M. John- son, E. J. Howard, Charles J. Hunt, James R. Foraker, John C. Schwartz, Orris P. Cobb and Wallace Burch, and Judges Howard Ferris, Edward Schwab, and Ellis Gregg, of Cincinnati, John B. Cockrum, of Indianapolis, Marshall A. Spooner, of North Dakota, and John P. Newman, of Newport, Kentucky. Judge Dempsey was admitted to practice October 6, 1879, by the old District Court of Hamilton County, Ohio, and remained associated with his preceptors for five years thereafter. In October, 1884, Judge Demp- sey began to practice the law by himself in the city of Cincinnati.
In December, 1886, he went to Chicago, where he remained until March 4, 1889, part of the time in association with Hon. Clarence S. Darrow, the well known lawyer-political economist of that city.
Life in Chicago not being congenial or satisfactory to him, Judge Demp- sey returned to Cincinnati, and opened an office in the Wiggins Building. In 1892, he associated himself with William M. Fridman, with offices in the Pickering building, where he and his associate did a fairly extensive and lucrative business until Judge Dempsey was called to the Superior Court bench in May, 1898.
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On September 5, 1894, Judge Dempsey was married to Mary Agatha O'Leary, oldest daughter of the late Cornelius O'Leary and Margaret (Sul- livan) O'Leary, who were among the first of the Irish pioneers of the West End of Cincinnati. Judge and Mrs. Dempsey have three living children : John Cornelius, aged eight years; Margaret Anna, aged seven years, and Ed- ward James, aged six years. Judge Dempsey attributes most of his success, since his married life began, to Mrs. Dempsey ; in fact, he says that she has been his mascot, and he always advises with her before undertaking any business or political venture.
It was at her suggestion that he undertook the candidacy which resulted in his election to the Superior Court bench in 1898. Judge Dempsey did not mix much in politics until 1896, when he accepted a nomination on the Democratic ticket for a Common Pleas judgeship.
It was the first Mckinley-Bryan campaign, and every one knows what happened to those who were candidates on the Bryan ticket that fall. In the spring and fall of 1897, Judge Dempsey took considerable part in reform campaigns directed against the intrenched dominant political organization. His participation in these reform movements brought Judge Dempsey some- what to the front in Democratic circles, and taken in connection with his sacrifice candidacy in 1896 placed him in a position favorable to the gratifi- cation of any judicial ambitions he might have. The opportunity came in the spring of 1898. Although only a mere passive candidate before the Demo- cratic convention, he was enabled to grasp the nomination as a compromise nominee because of the fierce war waged against each other by the partisans · of the two leading candidates, Hon. Guy W. Mallon and Hon. A. B. Bene- dict, and arising out of the dissensions in the Democratic party over the "Free Silver" question. Hon. John Galvin, an able, learned and politically inde- pendent lawyer, was the nominee of the Republican party. Mr. Galvin had been in rebellion against the leading faction of his party, and as a conse- quence that faction was disaffected toward him. The result was that in the election Judge Dempsey was chosen judge of the Superior Court of Cin- cinnati for a term of five years which began May 1, 1898. During this five years Judge Dempsey had, as associates on the Superior Court bench, Judges Rufus B. Smith, William H. Jackson and Howard Ferris, and Judge Demp- sey, himself, says that in these five years he did the hardest work of his life. It is a common notion that the lot of a judge is an easy and a happy one.
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This opinion is not quite true, if a judge be conscientious in taking his proper ·share of the work that is before the court to be done, and in the disposing of it. . To dispose of work, however, does not mean merely the getting it out of the way, because the results reached by the judge are also to be con- sidered, and it is usually by these results that the judge himself in turn is judged. Tested by this standard, Judge Dempsey made for himself an en- viable record while on the benchi, for while some of his judgments have been appealed from, the great majority of his decisions, because of the careful and painstaking manner in which they were reached, have been acquiesced in by the litigating parties. So conspicuous was this trait in Judge Dempsey's character,-this desire on his part at all hazards to find out where the truth and the justice of a cause were, -- that it raised him to the highest degree in the estimation of the practicing members of the Cincinnati bar, and this so much so that in the early part of 1903, when his official term was expiring. the Bar Association of Hamilton County, at the second largest meeting ever held in its history, by a practically unanimous vote, called for his retention on the Superior Court bench, and solicited all of the political parties to endorse him for reelection. But political exigencies decreed otherwise. The local Republican organization, strong and practically invincible, because of the possession of most of the local officers, declined to accede to the request of the Bar Association, and nominated as their candidate for judge, Hon. Lewis M. Hosea. There was a mayor to be chosen, together with every other city officer.
The fight waxed warm between the adhierents of Hon. Julius Fleisch- mann, the Republican .candidate for mayor, and of Hon. M. E. Ingalls, the candidate of the Citizens' Municipal party. Judge Dempsey was on the In- galls ticket, which went down ingloriously to defeat, although Judge Demp- sey had the solace, if solace it be, of leading his ticket by more than 8,500 votes, thus showing to that extent at least that an upright and conscientious judge does receive the approval of even the partisan, non-scratching voter. Since then, Judge Dempsey has been engaged in the practice of the law, having again associated himself with William M. Fridman, with offices in the St. Paul Building. In August, 1903, much against his will, and over his re- peated protestations and declinations, Judge Dempsey was nominated, at Columbus, Ohio, by the State Democratic Convention as the candidate of his party for judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Reluctantly he accepted
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this nomination as a duty he owed to his party, and went down to defeat, with Hon. Tom L. Johnson, in the forever to be remembered Republican land- slide of November of that year.
Judge Dempsey is now permanently out of politics, and engaged in the practice of his profession, devoting himself to that, and to the welfare of his family and the care of his beautiful home, No. 551 Purcell avenue, Price Hill. Judge Dempsey is essentially a home man, spending all of his time not engaged in business with his family; he is not addicted to sports of any kind, but gives his leisure time to outside reading and studies. He is fond of a good novel, enjoys the theatre, follows the newspapers closely, and, if he has the time, digs a bit into philosophy and history. In religious belief, he is a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Price Hill Holy Family Church. He is also a member of the Duckworth Club, of the Catholic Young Men's Institute, of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, of which he is president, of the Ohio and Cincinnati bar associations, of the National Union, and of the Old Hughes Society, of which also he is president. His portrait accompanies this sketch, being presented on a foregoing page.
WILLIAM CARSON, A. M., M. D., LL. D.
WILLIAM CARSON, A. M., M. D., LL. D., formerly one of Cincinnati's most prominent citizens and eminent physicians, passed out of life in this city, July 9, 1893. He was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, November 27, 1827, and was a son of William and Eliza F. (Claypoole) Carson.
William Carson, the grandfather of the late Dr. Carson, was born about the year 1788 in County Tyrone, Ireland, and was brought to America, the family settling in the State of Pennsylvania. There, in Franklin County, William, the son of William Carson, was born, and was old enough to bear arms in the War of 1812. In 1820 he settled at Chillicothe, Ohio, where he established a mercantile business and successfully conducted the same until his death in 1840. William Carson was a man of parts and most capably filled many of the public offices in his city and county. His wife's father was Abraham G. Claypoole, a Revolutionary soldier and one of the original meni- bers of the Society of the Cincinnati, his certificate of membership, now in the possession of his great-grandson, Dr. Arch. 1. Carson, bearing the signa-
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ture of George Washington, as president, and of J. Knox, as secretary. The Claypoole family was associated with the Penn family and was established in Pennsylvania at the same time. Abraham G. Claypoole, who was a resident of Philadelphia, was appointed cashier of the Chillicothe branch of the United States Bank, in 1820, and came west to fill the position.
Dr. Carson received the best educational training that could be se- cured in the private schools of the day and at the Chillicothe Academy, then the only public educational institution of the city. He was but 13 years of age, when an accident deprived him of his father; he therefore became, in a measure, the director of his own career. In 1842 he entered the freshman class of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, and was graduated in 1846, later in life receiving honorary degrees. His medical reading began under the supervision of the late Dr. David Wills of Chillicothe, and in the fall of 1847 he entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which noted school of medicine he graduated in April, 1850. In the following June he opened an office in Cincinnati, on East Third street, near Broadway, and it was in this city that his medical triumphs were won and his fame established. His professional life was most nearly connected with the purely medical branches, surgery having less attraction for him. For many years he was one of the busiest physicians of the city and was connected with St. John's Hospital, the Cincinnati Hospital, the Good Samaritan Hospital and the Children's Hospital under the direction of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was one of the original members of the Cincinnati Medical Society, which was merged into the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine: was a member of both the Ohio State Medical Society and the American Medical Association ; was a valued member of the Cincinnati Society of Natural His- tory and of the Ohio Society of the Sons of the Revolution. In connection with hospital work, he was a clinical lecturer and for a time was connected with a summer school of medicine which had its headquarters in the build- ing of the Medical College of Ohio. In 1869 he was made librarian of the Cincinnati Hospital Library and filled the position with the greatest efficiency until the date of his death.
Dr. Carson was twice married, first to Louise J. F. Whiteman, a daughter of Lewis Whiteman, the last named being a member of the old pioneer firm of Irwin & Whiteman. This marriage occurred October 12, 1854, and her death took place December 10, 1859. Two of her three children still
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survive, viz. : Jane Findlay and Mrs. Eliza Faran. On May 26, 1863, Dr. Carson was married to Esther A. Irwin, who was a daughter of Archibald Irwin, senior member of the firm of Irwin & Whiteman. Mrs. Carson died June 8, 1891, leaving two children : Dr. Arch. Irwin and Mary Claypoole. The former succeeded his father in practice and has built up a reputation of his own. He is a graduate of the Miami Medical College and began his practice in 1889. He is located at No. 46 East McMillan street.
As one of the pioneer physicians of Cincinnati, the late Dr. Carson de- serves extended mention, while as the promoter of medical science and up- holder of its highest ethics in this section of the State, no practitioner was more eminent.
PROF. EDWARD WYLLYS HYDE.
PROF. EDWARD WYLLYS HYDE, engineer, educator, author and scientist, now secretary and actuary of the Columbia Life Insurance Company, of Cincinnati, for many years has been prominent in the city's intellectual and social life and an important factor in collegiate circles. He was born at Sagi- naw, Michigan, October 17, 1843, and is a son of Rev. Harvey and Julia D. (Taylor) Hyde. His paternal grandparents, Abner and Sadie (Ens- worth) Hyde, as well as his maternal forebears, James and Elizabeth T. (Taylor) Taylor, were people of strong intellectual bias and prominent mem- bers of their several communities.
Professor Hyde was carefully and thoroughly educated although he taught himself French, Latin and German and the elements of mathematics. From November, 1862, to February, 1866, he served in the Union Army as an officer in the 33rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. After the close of the Civil War, he accompanied his father to Virginia, and in 1869, having decided upon an engineering course, he went to New York State and pursued the course at Cornell University, graduating in June, 1872. Two years later he took a second degree, in presenting a thesis on skew arches. For two years he was one of the engineering instructors at Cor- nell and taught mathematics for one year in the Pennsylvania Military Academy at Chester, Pennsylvania. He also spent a year in study and work at Ithaca, New York, and in 1875 was elected to an assistant professorship in mathematics and engineering in the University of Cincinnati, and later
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was made professor of mathematics. From January 1, 1892, to January I, 1893, and from July 1, 1897, to July 1, 1898, he served as dean of the Uni- versity. He was also chairman of the faculty from October 1, 1894, to July 1, 1895.
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