USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Centennial history of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, Vol. II > Part 60
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LOWRY F. SATER.
Lowry F. Sater measures up to a high standard of professional ability as a representative of the legal fraternity in the state capital. He was born at Sater, Ohio, June 15, 1867. and is the oldest son of Martin and Mary (MeHenry) Sater, both of whom are representative members of pioneer fam- ilies of the Miami Valley. Of the four sons of this family Pearl M. Sater is a practicing physician : Clinton H. a veterinary surgeon; and Miles W., an art student. One daughter. Mrs. Daisy S. Brown, completes the family.
Amid the environments common to the country lad. Mr. Sater's boyhood days were passed. He worked on his father's farm, attended the district schools, and at eighteen years of age began teaching in the schools of Hans- ilton county, at which he was engaged for five years. At the end of this time he entered Marietta College, where he remained for a year. Remning his studies in the Ohio State University in the fall of 1891, he graduated there- from four years later. Two years later he graduated from the law school at the same institution with the degree of Bachelor of Law. While a student in the university he was editor-in-chief of the Lantern, the college paper. and was president of his class in the senior year.
Following his admission to the bar Mr. Sater began the practice of law with his unele. John E. Sater, the present United States district judge, which connection was continued nutil Judge Sater's elevation to the Federal bench. Today Mr. Sater is a partner in the firm of Vory-, Sator, Seymour & Pease, one
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of the leading law firms of Columbus, conducting a general practice, but also specializing in real estate, corporation, insurance, banking and building asso- ciation and railroad practice, in which connection they represent a number of prominent and important business concerns.
On the 26th of September, 1903. Mr. Sater was married to Miss Kather- ine E. Morhart, of Middleport, Ohio, and they have two children: Richard Francis and Mary Katherine. Mr. Sater is a member of the United Breth- ren church. Politically he is a democrat. Ilis social nature is evidenced in his membership with the Ohio Club, of which he as been secretary from the time of its organization, and with the Masonic and Odd Fellows organiza- tions. He is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, and is president of the Franklin County Bar Association.
DANIEL E. SULLIVAN.
Daniel E. Sullivan, although now living retired. figured for many years as n prominent contractor in railroad building and street improvements. His success in this direction brought him into important business relations and enables him at the present time to enjoy the well earned fruit of former toil. Mr. Sullivan was born in Washtenaw county, Michigan, in 1840, a son of Timothy Sullivan, who was a native of Ireland, and on coming to America - itled at Soneca Falls. New York. in 1832. In 1835 he re- moved westward to Michigan, where he resided until his death in 1867. Ile married Johanna Harrington, who was also a native of the Emerald Isle and died in Michigan in 1882, having survived her Imsband for almost fifteen years. She was an annt to one of the lord mayors of Dublin. By this mar- riage there were eleven children, of whom six are still living: Michael, who resides on the old homestead; Margaret Maguire and Ellen Cunningham. who are living in Detroit; James W .. located at Salt Lake City; Florence, of Indiana; and Daniel E., of this review. The father was for many years a sea captain, making trips between New York and Liverpool.
Daniel E. Sullivan was educated in a country school, the term covering three months of winter. When fourteen years of age he put aside his text- books and began carrying water for a construction train. At the age of nine- teen years he was running a locomotive engine, and was thus employed until twenty-two years of age, when he began work on the track, and was thns employed until promoted to road master when twenty-eight years of age, rep- resenting the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad. There he remained for two years. Hle then took a contract from the Grand Rapids & Indiana Rail- road to build twenty-five miles of track from Paris, Michigan, to Clam Lake, Michigan, after which he was awarded the contract for the construction of fifty miles of track for the Cincinnati & Fort Wayne Railroad. He was next appointed roadmaster for the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, serving two years, and on the expiration of that period he was appointed general road master for the Southwestern Pennsylvania lines, acting in that
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capacity for seven years. On resigning he made a contract with the Nickel Plate Railway to build one hundred and ten miles of track from Arcadia. Ohio, to Cleveland, and subsequently he built forty-five miles of track for the Rochester & Pittsburg Railway and straightened the line of the Norfolk & Western Railway. Thus for many years he had been closely associated with railroad construction, and, retiring from that field of contracting. he turned his attention to street improvements, taking contracts for such work in Columbus. His last important contract here was the Sewage Purification Works, which after two years' work was completed in August. 1908. Mr. Sullivan retired from the active management of the business four years ago. but his three sons still carry it on, and the firm retains the high place in business cireles that was won by the father. Mr. Sullivan has invested to some extent in real estate, and has valuable property here.
On the 13th of November, 1866, Mr. Sullivan was married to Mis, Ella A. Hartenff and unto them were born six children, of whom five are living James A., F. D. and G. W., who carry on the business: Mr -. Rose: and Ella Gertrude, at home.
In his political views Mr. Sullivan has long been a stalwart republican, and served for two years as a member of the city council in the '80s. He has always been a representative of that publie-spirited class of men who see and utilize the opportunities for promoting the general welfare, withholding his cooperation and aid from no movement which he deems of value in promot- ing the best interests of the city. In his own business career he has been recognized as a man of stern integrity and honesty of purpose, who has des- pised all unworthy or questionable means to secure advancement or success in any undertaking or for any purpose.
GEORGE MADISON CLOUSE. M. D.
Dr. George M. Clouse was born Jannary 4. 1862. near Salem, Meigs county, Ohio. He is the son of Jesse and Alice Clonse, both of whose fam- ilies were among the pioneers of this state; the father being of Holland Dutch descent. The mother, whose maiden name was Rathburn, was a de- scandant from an old English family which came to America in colonial days and which had much to do in forming the early history of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and later shared in the struggle for independence.
Dr. Clouse was a pupil in the public schools in southern Ohio, where he mastered the common branches of learning. supplementing them later by an academic course at the Atwood Institute. He then joined his uncle. who was a prominent merchant, being two years in his employ. after which he went to Chicago, where he was also connected with mercantile interests for some time. It was not long, however, before Mr. Clouse began to look toward the practice of medicine for his life work. This was quite natural as his ancestors for generations back had given to the world many doctors. In 1884 he began preparing for medical college, studying far into the night
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DR. GEORGE M. CLOUSE.
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ASTOR. LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATION".
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after his day's work in the store. It was only after many obstacles that he finally came to Columbus and entered the Columbus Medical College, from which he graduated in 1890. At once he began the practice of medicine and surgery in this city, where he has resided continuously since. His ability in the healing art is indicated by his successful practice and by the respect with which the medical fraternity regards him. When active at all, he is found among the leaders in medical enterprise and good citizenship.
Dr. Clouse was one of the founders of the Ohio Medical University of this city and was its first professor of diseases of children. To this depart- ment of the medical science he has given much study and energy, organ- izing the state into the "Ohio State Pediatric Society"-a medical society devoted to the study of the diseases of children. He was among the first in Ohio to use diphtheria antitoxine, sending to Germany for it before it was obtainable in this country.
The transportation of the sick in the same rough wagon which hauled criminals to the city prison, as was formerly the custom in Columbus, was far from being satisfactory. Dr. Clouse agitated through the city news- papers the need of installing ambulances, and it was not long until the city was equipped with that service. It was he who in a medical essay made a plea for a publie or official fumigator which is now a permanent adjunct to the board of health. In these and other acts, the public and the profession are indebted to Dr. Clouse for his labors along the line of medical progress and in the effort to check the ravages of disease.
Hle is a member in good standing of the American Medical Association. the Ohio State Medical Society, the Columbus Academy of Medicine, and the General Practitioners Medical Society, of which he was a founder and its first president. He is medical examiner of several life insurance com- panies.
While busily engaged in the duties . pertaining to his profession. he has also found time and opportunity for cooperation with many movements for the general public good. Ile is firmly opposed to anything like misrule in public affairs and is a strong advocate for civic virtue and honor, standing at one time as the candidate of the Good Citizens League for councilman of the fourth ward. He endorses judicious improvement. believing that Columbus should be second to no city in the nature of its public interests and advancement.
Dr. Clouse was the originator and first president of the Home Building & Loan Asociation, and organizer of the East Side Board of Trade. His labors have been tangible factors in the upbuilding and growth of the east side, which was only sparsely settled when he became a resident of that part of the city twenty-five years ago. He has seen his section become a pop- ulous and desirable residence district and has watched and aided the de- velopment of Mt. Vernon avenue from a mud road and one-horse street car line to one of the best business centers east of High street.
In 1882 he was married to Miss Alice Atkinson, the daughter of Squire W. R. Atkinson, a well known pioneer of Gallia county, Ohio, of Scotch and English descent. To this union were born a son. Kenneth A., now a
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medical student and a graduate of the Ohio State University ; and a daughter, Georgia, a student of East high school.
In his Masonic relations, Dr. Clouse is a member of Magnolia, Knights Templar, Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree and the Shrine. Progress and patriotism may well be termed the keynote of his character, for these quali- fications have been manifested by him throughout his walks of life.
JOHN SIEBERT.
The nobility of the man of worthy achievement of today is traced along a different plane of ancestry than was the case in past ages; and the heritage that sire now transmits to son makes infinitely more for civilization and the elevation of the human race. This we see illustrated again and again in every center of American activity, for here it was that the steady and sturdy purpose, characteristic of the European nations, came in contact with the marvelons opportunities of this newer world, between the middle of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
John Siebert is the eighth of ten children born to Heinrich Lorenz and Susan (Dallinger) Siebert. The stock from which he sprang was not only prolific, it was substantial, courageous, liberty-loving, generous towards oth- ers, and solicitous enough about providing a better prospect for the children to strike root into a new and even alien soil. In 1832 when the Seibert fam- ily emigrated from Germany to the United States the undertaking was a far more difficult one than it would be today. The discomforts and dangers of a long voyage in a sailing vessel had to be endured, and, in this instance, the voyage lasted sixty-five days.
The father of the family gave up a flourishing business in Bockenheim, a suburb of Frankfort-on-the-Main, in his determination to establish his home in a land of liberty and equal rights. The reasons which impelled him were doubtless those which cansed numerous intelligent and substantial families to leave Germany in the '30s and '40s of the last century, among them a hatred of the reactionary policies of the government and an unwil- lingness to see their sons become "Kannonenfutter" (food for cannon) in the wars of kings.
The port of departure chosen by the emigrating family was Bremen. Here Heinrich Siebert found two families unable to sail because of the deple- tion of their meager funds. Their condition excited his pity and he paid their passage, as he had paid his own, to Baltimore. After the long winter voyage the cramped and weary passengers were glad to set foot on ground again, disembarking in the latter part of December, 1832. From Baltimore the journey over the mountains was made in two "prairie schooners" to Zanesville, Ohio. After a two months' sojourn in that then village, the fam- ily removed to a small farm. newly purchased, at Somerset, Ohio, where their inexperience in agriculture, combined with the poverty of the soil, assured nothing but present failures.
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It was on this farm, not far from the home of General Philip H. Sher- idan, then a boy of three years, that John Siebert was born, June 24, 1834- the first of the three children that came after the family's arrival in this country. In the following month the father sold his farm and took his fam- ily by wagon to Columbus, acting on the advice of a nephew who had accom- panied him from Germany and had opened a book bindery in the state cap- ital. The permanent residence of the Siebert family in Columbus may then be dated from the time they drove into town, July 8, 1834. As a means of support, the father opened a bakery at the northeast corner of Rich and High streets. Three years later the property at 660 South High street became the family homestead. It was opposite what is now known as the Hayden Place, but which was then a Lutheran Seminary. The years 1839 and 1840 were spent on a farm seven miles west of Columbus, but the family then returned to the homestead and there the father died, at the age of fifty-one years, in October, 1842. His widow lived until her seventieth year, dying at the old home in November, 1869.
At the time of his father's death John was but eight years old; the oldest son was barely twenty; and the children now numbered eight, two having died in infancy. The older, and even some of the smaller children, had to contribute to the family support. John was now attending a German school, but he found employment as an errand boy outside of school hours. At ten, he was sent to Dr. Boyle's English school at the northeast corner of Rich and Third streets, but remained here only a brief six months.
During the next six years of this formative period of his life, John was employed in various capacities in several printing offices. He worked at first in the office of the "Ohio Press" under Messrs. Georg :. M. Swan and Eli T. Tappan; then in the "Cross and Journal" office owned by Messrs. Randall and Batchelder, where J. M. Comly was at the time a journeyman printer; and later still served as a compositor on the "Ohio State Journal," working side by side with the poet and associate of William Dean Howells and joint author with him of the "Poems of Two Friends," John James Piatt. Thus the brief period of his school days was admirably supplemented by service and associations of distinctly educational value.
At the age of sixteen the youth became apprenticed to the bookbinder's trade, entering the shop of Siebert & Lilley. The head of this firm was his eldest brother, William Siebert, the other partner being Captain M. C. Lilley, with whom, later on, he himself formed business relations. In the last year of the apprenticeship, John was sent by Mr. Lilley to Sandusky, Ohio, to conduct a small bindery which that gentleman had recently purchased. He remained in charge there until the business was sold eighteen months later. Early in 1857 John was again given charge of a bindery in the northern part of the state, this time in Toledo in connection with the office of the Toledo Blade, but in April of this year Mr. Seibert decided to go west.
It is unnecessary to go into details of Mr. Seibert's western experiences, which occupied the greater part of the next two years. The territory of Ne- braska seems to have possessed at the time a strong attraction for a number of Ohio people. Omaha, then a mere settlement of perhaps a hundred scat-
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tered log and frame houses, became his immediate destination. As employ- ment was scarce in Omaha, Mr. Seibert betook himself to the neighboring and rival village of Florence, and became for a brief period the foreman of the printing office of the Florence Courier. As a colony of people from Colnm- bus, Ohio, had recently come to Nebraska with the purpose of founding a new Columbus a hundred miles west of Omaha, Mr. Siebert joined this col- ony. His life was now that of the western pioneer, with its variety of ardu- ous labors and vigorous pastimes. These included the felling of the timber, the cutting of hay and the hunting of the buffalo.
His return east after eighteen months spent in "roughing it" was made by wagon in company with a party of Wisconsin men, as far as Iowa City. thence by train to Paris, Illinois, where he visited his brother William, who was now farming on the prairie near Paris. Shortly afterward Mr. Siebert returned to Ohio, arriving in Columbus in the fall of 1858. The significance of this western experience lies in the fact that it gave Mr. Siebert a training in out-of-door life, in the ways of the camp and the trail, which hardened his constitution and proved invaluable as a preparation for army service in the Civil war, which was not far distant.
Mr. Sibert's arrival in Columbus may be properly said to have brought him to the tide in his affairs which was to lead on to fortune. although that tide was to be interrupted for a few years by the war for the Union. It hap- pened that Mr. Seibert's coming ocenrred at the beginning of the congres- sional campaign in Ohio. Mr. Siebert and his friend, Henry Lindenberg, were asked to participate in this campaign by condneting the local German organ of their party, called the Republicanische Presse. As compensation these gentlemen were to receive, after the election in October. their printing outfit and any stock that might be left over. With the equipment thus se- cured they began the publication of a German monthly-Der Odd Fellow. This was their first venture in the way of meeting the needs of secret societies. a venture which they renewed after the war, and which led by natural steps to the upbuilding of The M. C. Lilley Regalia Company.
The imminence of war after the election of Lincoln caused the publish- ers of Der Odd Fellow to discontinue their magazine after issuing its twelfth number. in December, 1860. Mr. Siebert was thus left free to volunteer for service in the Union cause. This he did under the president's first call for troops, enlisting in Company G of the Thirteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The drilling and uniforming of this regiment took place at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, and occupied the three months for which the men had en- listed. Accordingly the regiment re-enli-ted for three years, and was reor- ganized for the longer service in June. 1861. At this time Mr. Siebert, who had been first sergeant of his company, became its first lieutenant. He ac- companied his regiment into West Virginia, and on September 10, 1861, the Thirteenth Ohio engaged in its first battle at Carifex Ferry, defeating the enemy. The regiment was then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and entered the Army of the Ohio. It took part in the varions movements in Kentucky. Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, being engaged in the famous battles of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, Stone River and Chickamauga. At Stone River
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the Thirteenth Ohio was in the thick of the fray and lost fifty per cent of its strength, but helped to hold the field and had the satisfaction of seeing the enemy in full retreat on January 5, 1863.
Lieutenant Siebert regularly had command of his company during the absence of the captain on detached -ervice. Henco his commission as captain, received in 1864, was dated a year or more earlier. During the Chieka- magua campaign Lieutenant Siebert was disabled and in the hospital, but while still unable to walk joined his regiment by ambulance in time to ex- perience, with his comrades, the siege laid to the Union forces by General Bragg's army, which was stationed on Mission Ridge and Lookont Mountain. On the eve of the battle of Mission Ridge Mr. Siebert was still an invalid, and was compelled to remain with others in camp. Here many of the men of the regiment sought him out and entrusted him with their valuables and their messages to their families to be delivered in case they should be killed in the impending fight. In order to keep the numerous amounts he received at once secure and separate he sewed them into his clothing until he was pad- ded from head to foot with thousands of dollars, and found himself custo- dian of many watches. However, he was most happily spared the sad task of carrying out the injunctions of his comrades, for after the battle not one of them failed to call for his property. The Thirteenth Ohio saw its last im- portant service in the war when its division was sent under General Sher- man to relieve General Burnside at Knoxville, Tennessee. In June, 1864, the regiment was mustered out at Chattanooga by reason of expiration of its term of enlistment.
Mr. Siebert now returned to Columbus and entered into partnership with Captain M. C. Lilley in the bookbinding business. With other partners he began again the publication of an Odd Fellows' magazine, this time in English, called The Off Fellow:' Companion. From the associations thus formed was developed the present M. C. Lilley Regalia Company, which has continued with but slight change in its membership since the organization in 1865. This company has by careful management built up the largest manu- factory of paraphernalia for secret orders in the world, and now employs nine hundred hands. Mr. Siebert has been the vice president of the company from the beginning. The plans for the main building of the present factory on. east Long street were drawn according to Mr. Siebert's ideas, and after its completion in 1892 this structure was declared by the state inspector of workshops to be the model factory of the state for safety, heating and lighting.
Mr. Siebert has been connected with two other leading business enter- prises of the capital city from their organization. These are the Ohio Na- tional Bank and the Edison Light & Power Company. Of the former Mr. Siebert was elected president at its establishment in 1888 and continued to serve in that capacity for almost twenty years, retiring on account of advanc- ing age. The deposits of this institution now amount to five million dollars. He was also one of the organizers of the Edison Company, which was formed in 1886. He has been a member of its board of directors throughout its pros-
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perous existence. In 1904 the Edison plant was leased to the Columbus Rail- way & Light Company.
In 1902 Mr. Siebert was appointed by Governor George K. Nash, one of the five directors, to select a site and erect thereon a Memorial Hall. This noble and commodious structure stands on the north side of Broad street, near Sixth, and is one of the architectural features of Columbus. It is built in a simple, classical style, and contains one of the largest auditoriums in the country, with a seating capacity of forty-five hundred, and with unexcelled acoustic properties. This great building cost $257,000, and is Franklin county's splendid memorial to her soldiers of all the wars.
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