USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Centennial history of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, Vol. II > Part 22
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Returning to Ohio he entered the employ of the Smith Bridge Company, being foreman of construction with headquarters at Toledo. He was next engaged as bridge builder with the Kentucky Central and then went to Nor- walk, Ohio, where he constructed several bridges and also built the complete waterworks system at Milan, Erie county, Ohio. He also spent one year in South Carolina in construction work. Establishing his home in Columbus in 1888 he here turned his attention to the stone business as junior partner of the firm of Phelps & Taylor, owners of stone quarries, until 1889. Several changes in partnership occurred ere business was reorganized under the name of the Columbus Stone Company. After selling out his interests with this company he became connected with the Casparis Stone Company as vice presi- dent and general manager. They are owners of excellent quarries in several sandstone which they ship extensively. The business is now a very large concern of the city and its success is attributable in considerable measure to the unflagging efforts and business discerment of Mr. Taylor. His rich in- heritance of energy and pluck, has enabled him to turn defects into victory and promi-ed failures into brilliant successes. He has been able to see silvery linings between the clouds and to overcome obstacles which to others might have been insurmountable. His investments are now extensive and in addi- tion to his connection with the Casparis Stone Company he is the president
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of the Columbus Macadam Company, the Casparis Marble Company and several other important concerns.
In 1885 Mr. Taylor was married to Miss Mary L. Foster, of Norwalk. Ohio, and they have an only daughter, Mabel. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Ohio Club and the Columbus Country Club. He belongs also to the Buckeye Club of New York. In Masonry he has attained the thirty-second degree and is also a member of Aladdin Temple of the Mystic Shrine, while his membership relations extend to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Perseverance and hard work have constituted the foundation of his success and he enjoys the well earned distinction of being what the public calls a self-made man. He wears his honers with becoming modesty but those who know aught of his career entertain for him both. admiration and respect. He is thoroughly alive not only to any business situation but to conditions affecting the public welfare and his influence is felt as a strong steady-moving force in the social, moral and industrial movements of the community.
WILLIAM PARKER LITTLE.
William Parker Little, cashier of the Hayden-Clinton National Bank, has in his business career made that progress which results from the utiliza- tion of opportunity and the employment of continually expanding powers. He was born in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, June 5, 1850, a son of Robert and Cynthia Dow (Searritt) Little, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of New England. His great-grandfather, Robert Parker, was a soldier of the Revolutionary war and achieved prominence in that epoch of our country's history. Thus it is that William Parker Little ha- been ad- mitted to membership in the Sons of American Revolution. ITis grand- father, P. W. Little, was a successful physician in his native town of Mercers- burg, Pennsylvania, and Robert P'. Little followed in his professional foot- steps becoming an able member of the medical fraternity in the Keystone state. His ability gained him prosperity aud prominence and he continued in active practice in Pennsylvania until 1852, when he came to Columbus. Ill health, however, prevented him from again taking up the ardnons duties of his profession and he therefore established a drug store, which he con- dueted until his death in 1855.
William Parker Little was brought to Columbus when only two years of age, but his father died in 1855 and he and his mother afterward returned east, making his home in New Jersey until in 1862, when he again became a resident of Columbus, He attended the city schools until he completed the high-school course, after which he entered Heidelberg College at Tiffin, Ohio. He made his initial step into the business world as messenger in the Bartlitt & Smith Bank and has since been continually connected with the banking business and few are considered better authority on banking questions. Hle stands as one of the most prominent representatives of financial interests in Columbus, his position due to his close application, his unfaltering enter-
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prise and his wise use of his native powers and talents. After a short time with the Bartlitt & Smith Bank he became bookkeeper for the banking firm of Hayden, Hutcheson & Company and has remained with that institution through all of its changes down to the present time. Since 1892 he has been the cashier of the Hayden-Clinton National Bank and his labors have contributed in substantial measure to the success of the institution. To the sohition of intricate business problems he brings keen discrimination and an analytical ability that permits him to understand the various elements that enter into their composition. He therefore rejects the non-essential and retains the essential, so shaping the varied interests as to bring them into a unified whole.
On the 22d of October, 1889, Mr. Little was married to Fanny Platt Bates, a daughter of Judge James L. Bates, a well known and prominent representative of the legal fraternity of Columbus. This marriage has been blessed with five children: Helen Kelley, Evelyn Dow, Robert Parker. Mary Bates and Alene Seymour.
While his business duties have made a large claim upon his time and attention Mr. Little has always found opportunity to support progressive public measures tending to advance the interests of the city. His religious faith is indicated by his attendance at the Presbyterian church and some- thing of the nature of his recreation is shown in his membership in the Ohio and Columbus Gun Clubs. His business career has been characteristic of the innate powers which are his and the directing of his efforts along the lines where mature judgment has led the way.
THOMAS J. ABERNETHY.
Columbus with her pulsing industrial activities and complex business interests is continually drawing to her from other sections of the state men of worth whose force in partienlar lines is manifest in the impetus which her various professional and commercial concerns receive therefrom. Coming from one of the neighboring county seats, Thomas J. Abernethy, now recog- nized as a strong member of the Franklin county bar, represents one of the old well known families of Pickaway county which has furnished both the bar and the bench of the capital city with worthy incumbents. His birth occurred March 27, 1866, his parents being Robert and Hester J. (Bolin) Abernethy. The father, a man of liberal education. took great interest in public affairs and in the religions development of his locality. as well as in agriculture which he made his life work. He was a native of Virginia and a son of James M. Abernethy, one of the carly pioneers of Pickaway county, and was recognized as a man of much force of character and occu- pied a position of leadership in public affairs. No man of his day took greater interest in the work of general improvement or produced more prac- tical results in that connection. Local advancement and national progress were causes dear to his heart and he was interested as well in the social
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conditions which work for the betterment of mankind. Broad in his relig- ious views, his house was always open to ministers of the gospel without regard to creed or denomination. Travelers of his day through the new country never failed to call on him and consult him as to good points of location, and his advice was freely given for the joint benefit of him who sought it and for the interests of the community at large in its upbuilding.
From such a parent stock came Thomas J. Abernethy, who largely follows the same lines and never looks at life from a narrow standpoint but has directed his efforts in every relation to the general welfare as well as individual needs. In the common schools he prepared himself for the pro- fession of teaching and used that calling wherewith to secure the means that would enable him to pursue a higher educational course. When this was made possible he attended the National Normal University at Lebanon, and also studied for a time in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware. He then resumed teaching and also took up the study of law under the direction of the law firm of Page, Abernethy & Folsom at Circleville, Ohio, there con- tinuing his reading until he was regularly admitted to the bar in 1890, since which time he has continually and successfully engaged in practice.
For some years Mr. Abernethy followed his profession in Pickaway county and then in January, 1900, concluding to enter a broader field, came to Columbus where he has built up a good practice. The fact that there could be no permanent success in life without the cardinal virtues of honesty, sobriety and fair dealing was inculcated in his mind in his boyhood and he has been able to again and again demonstrate the correctness of these prin- ciples. Having in early manhood the ambition to become a lawyer, when once admitted to the bar his ambition was to inake steady advance in the profession and, at all times actuated by high ideals, he has proved himself an able and conscientious minister in the temple of justice. Always careful to conform his efforts to a high standard of professional ethics, he never sought to lead the court astray in a matter of fact or law and yet gives to his client the benefit of great talent, unwearied industry and wide learning. His reading has been by no means confined to professional lines for he has sought out the best general literature of all ages and shows a most discrimi- nating taste in the selection of his library.
Mr. Abernethy has been married twice. Ou the 25th of September, 1889, at her home near Mount Sterling, Ohio, he wedded Miss Blanche Mitchell, a danghter of one of the leading farmers of that community. Unto them were born two children, Hester Henrietta and Elizabeth Beatrice. The wife and mother died February 9, 1895, and on the 11th of June, 1902, Mr. Abernethy wedded Miss Nellie V. Cain, of Lancaster, Ohio. He and his family enjoy wide and pleasant acquaintance, not only in the capital city but in other cities and centers of business and society. Mr. Abernethy is a democrat in principle but without political aspirations, and against his will was nominated for common pleas judge in 1899. Something of his personal popularity and the confidence reposed in him by the general public is indi- cated by the fact that he succeeded in reducing the republican majority of the district from forty-five hundred to five hundred. He has always adhered
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to the religious teachings of the Methodist church in which he was reared, and regards his fellowmen in a spirit of charity and good will while allowing for himself no swerving from the rules which govern strict integrity, hon- orable manhood and high professional service.
JOHN T. GAMBLE.
John T. Gamble, junior partner of the real-estate firm of Knauss & Gamble, was born June 24, 1861, in Watkins, Union county, Ohio. His father, Benjamin Gamble, also a native of this state, was a merchant who conducted a general store up to the time of the Civil war, when he enlisted in the Thirtieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, becoming a corporal of Company E. He lost his life in the siege of Vicksburg while working in the trenches. The Gamble family has always been well-to-do, owning large farms in Union county, where they had lived from pioneer times, taking an active and helpful part in the early development and progress of that section of the state. The mother of John T. Gamble bore the maiden name of Ma- tilda Ann Shout and was born in Ostrander, Delaware county, Ohio. Her father, Elijah Shout, was a farmer and a pioneer. In colonial days the ancestors lived in the east and participated as soldiers of the American army in the war for independence.
John T. Gamble, was a district-school student at Watkins until eight years of age, when, at the death of his mother, his father having previously passed away, he was placed by his guardian, Judge P. B. Cole, in the Ohio Soldier's Orphan Home at Xenia, where he remained until the age of sixteen years. Ambitious for further educational advantages than he had already received, he entered the Marysville high school, where he remained until eighteen years of age, when he became an employe of a railroad company as telegraph operator at Loveland, Ohio, and was employed there and at Cin- cinnati until 1880, when he became imbued with the desire to see something of the west and made his way to the Pacific coast, at different times working in Missouri, Kansas and Texas as special relief man and train dispatcher. Subsequently he became train dispatcher as Las Vegas, New Mexico, for the Santa Fe Railroad Company. After some months spent in the west, he be- came convinced that he preferred Ohio as a place of residence, and in 1883 returned, settling in Toledo, where he remained for eleven years in the em- ploy of the Wheeling & Lake Erie and the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad Companies, acting for the latter company as general agent in the passenger department. In this capacity he was transferred to Columbus in 1894, and his connection with railroad interests continued until 1899, when he with- drew to engage in business on his own account as a partner in the real-estate firm of Knauss & Gamble. They have prospered and the firm is today one of the most prominent in real-estate circles in Columbus, handling large property and at all times keeping thoroughly informed concerning the real estate that is on the market and the possibilities of diminution or advance in
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price, so that they are able to wisely advise their clients and make judicions purchases and sales for those who give them their patronage.
On the 3d of November, 1897, Mr. Gamble was married to Miss Lizzie May Knauss, a daughter of Colonel William H. Knanss. She died in Colum- bus May 5, 1908. Mr. and Mrs. Gamble became parents of four children, two of whom, Helen Louise and Margaret Alberta, died in infancy ; Katherine E., born March 6, 1904. and Victor K., born October 16. 1907, are two bright and promising children.
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Mr. Gamble is a member of the Masonic fraternity and has attained the Knight Templar degree of the York Rite and also the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He belongs to the subordinate lodge and the uniformed rank of the Knights of Pythia-, is a past chancellor of Charles Sumner Lodge, No. 137, K. P .. and was inspector general of Ohio for eight years with the rank of colonel. He was a member of the Fourteenth Regiment of In- fantry of the Ohio National Guard and now holds an honorable discharge. He is a member of the Columbus Board of Trade and the Columbus Real Estate Board and is interested in the movements for the business development and progress of the city. He belongs to the Buckeye Fishing Club-an asso- ciation which indicates much of the nature of his recreation. His political allegiance has been given to the republican party and, while he neither seeks nor desires office. he is never remiss in the duties of citizenship. He stands as a progressive man, strong in his honor and his good name, strong in his ability to plan and perform. His record is notable from the fact that he was left an orphan at an early age and without home influence or training he has come to be recognized as a man of prominence in the capital city, hon- ored for what he has accomplished and the methods he has pursued.
PROFESSOR WILLIAM C. MILLS.
Professor William C. Mills, whose work as an archaeologist and author upon scientific subjects has gained him recognition and honor among the learned men of the country, is now acting as curator of the Archaeological Museum of the Ohio State University, and curator and Librarian of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society Museum. The state owes much to him for many details of information pertaining to the archaeological phe- nomena and for the arrangement of her archaeological exhibits, consisting ns they do in many instances of specimens of the handiwork of prehistorie men of greater antiquity and rarity than any other musemn. Professor Mills is now in the prime of life and his ability, energy and enthusiasm along this particularly interesting line promise results of inestimable scientific value.
A native of Pyrmont, Montgomery county, Ohio, Professor Mills is a son of Joshua and Mary ( Mundhenk) Mills, both of whom were born in Dayton, Ohio. The father, who for some years has lived a retired life, devoted his energies through a long period to the occupation of farming, the only interruption to his active service in the fields being at the time of the
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WILLIAM C. MILLS
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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
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Civil war, when, in response to the country's call for aid, he enlisted in the Seventy-first Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He retired at the age of fifty-five years and although now eighty years of age looks to be no more than sixty, while his wife is equally well preserved. They were the parents of a son and two daughters; Professor William C. Mills; Clara, the wife of John C. Loy of Dayton ; and Mamie, who owns and manages a large millinery establishment in Dayton.
Spending his boyhood days under the parental roof, Professor Mills at- tended the public schools of the neighborhood and afterward engaged in teach- ing in the common schools for four years. Desirous of further educational advantages, he entered the Ohio State University in 1881, becoming one of the first students of that institution. At the close of his junior year "he en- tered the Cincinnati School of Pharmacy, from which he was graduated in due course of time. Once more he became a student in the Ohio State Uni- versity in 1897 and was graduated the following year with the degree of Bachelor of Science, while two years later the university conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Science. His entire life has been devoted to scientific investigation, research and labor, in which connection he has shown himself the peer of many of the master minds in this field of thought. He was appointed curator of the Archaeological Museum of the Ohio State University and has since continued in this position. Through extensive writ- ing and on the lecture platform he has been a potent factor in the dissemi- nation of knowledge in this field of science, both his spoken and written utterances attracting wide attention among those who stand high in this work and speak authoritatively upon the subject. In 1898 he was elected curator and librarian of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and about the smne time he began lecturing on anthropology. He was also chosen librarian of the Ohio Academy of Science and was elected to the presi- deney of the Wheaton Ornithological Society, named in honor of Dr. Whea- ton. He is likewise a fellow of the American Ornithologists Union, was in 1907 elected a fellow of the American Ethnological Society, is a charter member of the American Association of Museums, and in 1904 was elected a fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science. He was likewise associate editor of the Ohio Naturalist and is the author of innum- erable articles and pamphlets concerning exploration work in the fields of archaeology. His writings include a several volume work entitled "Certain Mounds and Village Sites in Ohio," "Ohio Archaeological Exhibits at the Jamestown Exposition," and many other papers bearing upon the same phase of this attractive study. He was superintendent of the Ohio archaeological exhibits at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, was honorary superintendent of archaeology at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and superintendent of archaeological exhibits at the Tercentenary Exposition at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1906-07.
Professor Mills was married. October 7, 1885, to Miss Olive Buxton, a daughter of N. W. Buxton, of Coshocton, Ohio, and unto them has been born a daughter, Helen Marie. The parents hold membership in the United
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Brethren church and Professor Mills is a member of the Masonic fraternity. Contrary to the generally accepted opinion concerning the scholar and the scientist, Professor Mills is fond of athletics, in which he has always taken an active part, was the last graduate manager of the Ohio State University Athletic Association, acted as its president for six years and is now its treasurer. He is fully alive to the interests of the day and to the vital questions of the times, regarding always the value of his work among the records of the pre- historic past in its association with the living present.
ABRAHAM WILLIAM HERSHEY.
While the business career of Abraham William Hershey has been notably successful, there are other phases in his life record worthy of emphasis. He has never been neglectful of his obligations from the time when at nine years of age he started ont for himself in the business world, giving from his meager earnings for the support of the family and afterward materially assisting in a financial way his old employer, and giving every evidence of the helpful spirit which has been one of his strong characteristics. While he has carefully systematized his business and demands faithful service of those in his employ, he is particularly just in all his relations with his employes, while his patrons recognize the fact that the old maxim "hon- esty is the best policy" constitutes a guiding rule in the control of the estab- lishment.
Mr. Hershey was born at Medway, Clark county, Ohio, January 10, 1870. His father, Abraham Hershey, was a native of Germany and in the '50s became a resident of Springfield, Ohio, where he conducted business as a contractor and builder. He was awarded some of the largest contracts of that city for the erection of the immense manufacturing plants there and became very successful and well known. He married Katharine Win- terhalter, also a native of Germany. Ilis death occurred in 1900, while his wife passed away in 1902.
Abraham William Hershey pursued his education through the pri- mary and grammar grades of the public schools in Medway and afterward attended the high school, from which he was graduated with the class of 1888. From the age of nine years he had been dependent upon his own resources and provided for his own education. Following his graduation he accepted a clerkship in a general country store on a small scale, there remaining for five years, during which time he was gradually advancing until he was given full charge of the business. The spirit of self-help is the source of all genuine worth in an individual and it was carly manifested in the career of Mr. Hershey who soon learned to make the best possible use of his opportunities and as he was struggling upward himself he did not hesitate to extend a helping hand to others on the journey of life. In addi- tion to aiding his family he also assisted a former employer in a time of difficulty, and throughout his entire career has used many opportunities to encourage or aid those who have been forced to depend entirely upon their
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own labors for advancement. On leaving his native city he went to Rich- mond, Indiana, where he entered the employ of Adam H. Bartel & Com- pany, manufacturers and jobbers, as stock clerk. He was rapidly promoted and at the age of twenty years became a traveling salesman. His conner- tion with that house covered twelve years, from 1890 until 1902. and his close application and unremitting energy made him their most successful salesman.
All through his life Mr. Hershey was ambitions to engage in business on his own account, and the year 1902 saw the fulfillment of this desire. Coming to Columbus, he organized the Capital Manufacturing Company with Mr. Donavin as president and himself as vice president and general man- ager. The company was thus officered until 1904, when the business was reorganized under the name of the Hershey-Rice Manufacturing Company with Mr. Hershey as president and general manager. Today this is one of the most important commercial concerns of Columbus, engaged extensively in the handling of workingmen's clothing, manufactured at their own fac- tories elsewhere in the state. The business had its beginning in a small storeroom at No. 640 North High street, where it was conducted under the name of the Capital Manufacturing Company, only ten machines being used and but few people employed. The training of Mr. Hershey, however, had been very thorough and he managed and attended to every detail of the business so that it proved a success from its inception, and after a year and a half it was necessary to seek more commodions quarters. Large bo- nuses were offered and many inducements presented by other Ohio towns that wished to add the Hershey manufactory to their industrial interests. At length it was determined to establish the manufacturing end of the business in Blanchester, while the selling and distributing department of the business was continued in Columbus. For this purpose Mr. Hershey leased a large second floor room at No. 30 West Spring street, in the heart of the wholesale district. The business had now reached such a prepond- erance and such a volume that an additional working force and capital had to be added, and a reorganization of the company was effected, Mr. Hershey being joined by F. C. Rice, the business then being incorporated as the Hershey-Rice Manufacturing Company. The new quarters had been occu- pied but a brief period when it was found that they too were insufficient and an adjacent room was leased and later other additions were made from time to time. At the Blanchester factory work was carried on night and day to meet the demand of the trade under the personal direction of Mr. Rice. The following year the company took over the plant and business of the J. A. Sommers Manufacturing Company at Hamilton, Ohio, manu- facturers of a line of goods similar to theirs. It was now evident that the Blanchester plant was entirely inadequate and the result was that a build- ing was erected by the company occupying a city block. With the arrival of the force from the Hamilton plant came many women who were withont a home and a large dormitory was speedily crected to care for them. The building has all the aspects of a modern hotel and gives to the working women the comforts and pleasures of the home life to which they had been
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