USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Cleveland, Ohio, pictorial and biographical. De luxe supplement, Volume II > Part 8
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E DWIN C. HENN is the vice president and general superintendent of the National- Acme Manufactur- ing Company, and also the inventor of the multiple spindle automatic screw machines which this com- pany builds. He became connected therewith in 1902 and in the intervening years the goods of this com- pany have established a world standard. The growth, of the business, too, has made it one of the most important productive industries of Cleveland, and Mr. Henn is known as one of the leading business men of his adopted city.
His birth occurred in New Britain, Connecticut, June 5, 1863: His father, a native of Germany, was born April 1, 1825, and came to America about 1845. He was for many years identified with manufacturing interests in connection with the well known firms of Russell, Irwin & Company and Landers, Frary & Clark, but is now living retired. He married Barbara Wilhelmy, who was also of German birth. Her natal year was 1831 and in 1899 she was called to her final rest. Mr. and Mrs. Henn were married in this country and their children were Edwin C .; Frank, now deceased; Albert W., secretary and treasurer of the National Acme Manufacturing Company; and Julia, the wife of Charles Snow, of Hartford, Connecticut.
In the public schools of New Britain, Connecticut, Edwin C. Henn pursued his education through consecutive grades and be- came a high school pupil. He was associated with his father in business until eighteen years of age, when he went to Lorain, Ohio, and entered the employ of Joel Hayden Brothers Company. Sub- sequently he went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was connected with Post & Company, manufacturers of telephone supplies, for a few months. He returned to Hartford, Connecticut, to take a position as contractor with Pratt & Cady, manufacturers of waterworks sup- plies, with whom he remained for twelve years, filling various posi-
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tions of trust during that period. In 1895 he engaged in business on his own account as a manufacturer of bicycle parts and in 1902 he came to Cleveland and shortly thereafter, in connection with his brother, A. W. Henn and W. D. B. Alexander, he organized the National Acme Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of automatic machinery and producing by automatic machinery parts for practically everything from a watch to a locomotive. They have made the Acme automatic machines the standard of the world. The business was begun in a little room in an attic and has grown to be one of Cleveland's giant industries, having the largest individual plant of its kind in the United States, covering over six acres of floor space, while employment is furnished to one thousand expert work- men. They use ten million and seventy-eight thousand pounds of iron, steel and brass annually in the product department alone and turn out over one hundred million finished parts. They maintain large warehouses and salesrooms in New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston and distribute their product throughout Europe, South America, Asia and Africa, as well as America. The business has enjoyed notable growth and is still developing at a remarkable rate, due in large part to the tireless energy and mechanical skill of Mr. Henn, who is its vice president and general superintendent. He has given to the world what it needs and the manufactured product is of such excellence and the prices so reasonable that a continu- ance of the trade is assured.
On the Ist of July, 1884, Mr. Henn was united in marriage to Miss Dora Krout, a daughter of J. M. Krout, of Louisville, Ken- tucky. They have eight children: Albert E. was educated at Hart- ford, Connecticut, and in the Glenville high school; Oliver L., who pursued his education in the same schools; Ralph F., who attended the Glenville high school and the Case School of Applied Science; Viola; Julia; Reginald F .; Carl; and Richard. They reside on the Berkshire road in Euclid Heights, having one of the palatial resi- dences of that section of the city. Mr. Henn is enthusiastic on the subject of motoring, and golf; fishing and shooting are his pastimes; and travel also furnishes him recreation and interest. Socially he is connected with the Colonial and Euclid Clubs and fraternally with the Masonic and Odd Fellows Societies. He belongs also to the Glenville Christian church and is a member of the Chamber of Com- merce, cooperating in its various plans and movements for the busi- ness development, the substantial improvement and the adornment of the city. He stands as a splendid type of the alert, enterprising business man, his being a notable example of rapidly acquired suc- cess on the part of one who has understood conditions of trade and
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met the needs and demands of the time. Within a notably short period his business has reached mammoth proportions and the name of the company whose interests he largely controls is now known in every section of the world.
Roy To your 0
Rop Follette Dork
OY FOLLETTE YORK, equipped for life's practi- R cal and responsible duties by liberal educational advantages, which included a course in law, has made wise use of his time and opportunities and is now en- joying a substantial income as the vice president of the Stearns Automobile Company, of Cleveland, his native city. He was born February 4, 1871, of the marriage of B. H. and Julia (Harkness) York, the latter a daughter of Dr. L. G. and Julia (Follette) Harkness, of Bellevue, Ohio. B. H. York, who was born in 1833 and died in 1884, was a grain merchant, conducting business as a member of the firm of Gardner, Clark & York.
In the public schools Roy F. York acquired his preliminary edu- cation, which was supplemented by study in Bridgeman's Academy and Brooks School, private institutions of this city. He afterward attended the Columbia Law School of New York city and the knowl- edge there gained has been a valuable element in his later business career. Leaving college, he turned his attention to the brokerage business in connection with his brother, under the name of R. H. York & Company, being thus associated until 1903, when he became connected with the Stearns Automobile Company as sales manager. After two years he was elected vice president of the company and has taken conspicuous part in placing it in the front rank among the automobile builders of America. Its output is now extensive and its manufactured product is standard in all that goes to make up good workmanship, durability, style and finish. The name of the house, too, has become a synonym for reliable business dealing for it is the policy and purpose of the members of the firm to hold to the highest commercial ethics.
Mr. York belongs to the Cleveland Automobile Club and the Automobile Club of America and further indication of his social nature is found in his identification with the Union, Tavern, Coun- try, Roadside and Mayfield Country Clubs. He is fond of golf,
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motoring and driving and indulges his love of these in leisure hours. He has traveled extensively both at home and abroad. His belief in republican principles is manifest in his support of the party at the polls when state and national candidates are on the ticket but at local elections, where no party issue is involved he votes independently. He resides at No. 2708 Euclid avenue and stands very high among Cleveland's younger generation of business men, being popular in business and social circles.
Frederick A. Henry
Judge Frederick Augustus Henry
UDGE FREDERICK AUGUSTUS HENRY, cir- cuit judge of the eighth judicial circuit, which com- prises Cuyahoga, Lorain, Medina and Summit coun- ties, was born in Bainbridge, Geauga county, Ohio, June 16, 1867. The ancestry of the family can be traced back to William Henry, of Stow, Massachu- setts. Later he resided in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. He was no doubt one of the Scotch-Irish immigrants to Massachusetts in 1718. The family had been represented in Ireland for about a century, members thereof removing from Scotland to the Emerald isle in 1620. He was a farmer by occupation and on crossing the Atlantic took up his abode at Stow, Massachusetts.
His son, Robert Henry, was born in Ireland and died in Shirley, Massachusetts, in 1759, leaving a widow and seven children, some of whom subsequently removed to Lebanon, New London county, Connecticut. Their mother, Eleanor Henry, was still residing with her eldest son John at the time of her death in Enfield, Hartford county, Connecticut, November 23, 1807, when she was eighty- four years of age.
John Henry, son of Robert and Eleanor Henry, was born in Stow, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, January 8, 1742-3. From that place the family removed to the neighboring town of Groton. On the petition of Robert Henry and others the southwest corner of Groton was organized January 5, 1753, as the town of Shirley and a hill there, through which the Fitchburg Railroad makes a deep cut, is still called Mount Henry. John Henry wedded Mary Gager, daughter of the Rev. William and Mary (Allen) Gager. Her father was a graduate of Yale College, pastor of the second church at Lebanon and a great-grandson of William Gager, a sur- geon who came to America with Governor Winthrop in 1630. John Henry had a brief record of service from the town of Lebanon in the Revolutionary war. He resided successively in Lebanon, Leba-
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non Crank, Bolton and Enfield, Connecticut, and finally died in Enfield, January 9, 1819, aged seventy-six years. He was a mason by trade and is said to have built many a stack of chimneys in the factory and mill towns of the Connecticut valley. Mary, his wife, died in Enfield, May 31, 1812, aged sixty-seven years. Their chil- dren were: Simon; Gager; William; Samuel; Lois, who became the wife of Daniel Pease; Eleanor, the wife of Augustus Prior; Mary, the wife of Elijah Holkins; Cynthia, the wife of Simon Bush; and Sarah, or Sally, the wife of Abel Merrill. Samuel Henry at one time bought land in Bainbridge but never lived there. Some of the Bush family, however, afterward removed to Bain- bridge.
Simon Henry, son of John and Mary Henry, was born in Leba- non Crank, now Columbia, Toland county, Connecticut, November 27, 1766, being the eldest of the nine children. In 1792 at Enfield, Connecticut, he married Rhoda Parsons, a daughter of John Par- sons, a soldier of the Revolutionary war, who was the great-great- grandson of Benjamin Parsons, of Springfield, Massachusetts, and a representative of a family of high repute. Soon after the birth of their eldest son, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Henry removed to Middle- field, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, where their second son was born, and then a year or two later they crossed the county line into Berkshire county, where eight more children were added to the family. The western part of Massachusetts was then, as now, a region of wild and beautiful woods and mountain scenery but of thin and unfruitful soil. Here, however, they remained for about twenty-five years, cultivating land which they had purchased. Among the substantial citizens of Washington none was more re- spected and honored than Simon Henry, for the town records show that he was repeatedly chosen moderator of their annual town meet- ing and chairman of the board of selectmen, besides discharging many other public functions down to the very date of his removal to Ohio. In 1812-13 he represented the town in the general court at Boston, and about the same time one or more of his sons served their country in the second war with Great Britain, the number in- cluding John Henry, the grandfather of our subject.
Notwithstanding this apparent prosperity among the Berkshire hills, New Connecticut, as the Western Reserve was then called, of- fered many attractions, especially to a farmer with a large family of sons. Fully one quarter of the people of Washington emigrated to the west between 1815 and 1820, and Simon Henry, anxious to give each of his sons a farm, sold his land in Massachusetts and bought a large tract in Bainbridge, Ohio, from Simon Perkins, of
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Warren. To Ohio, therefore, with wife and eight children, two older ones, Orrin and John, having gone ahead the year before, he removed in 1817. The diary of his journey, still preserved by N. C. Henry, is terse and almost void of incident but there is pathetic in- terest in the brief chronicle which begins: "We started from home September 18, on Thursday in the afternoon," and on November I, after forty-five days of weary travel, the last entry is "Saturday night, home." Truly home is where the heart is.
The children of Simon and Rhoda Henry were as follows : Orrin, the eldest, born at Enfield, Connecticut, October 17, 1792, was married March 16, 1827, to Dencey Thompson, had a large family and removed to Illinois. William, born in Middlefield, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794, married Rachel McConoughey and had seven children. John was the grandfather of Judge Henry. Rhoda, born in Washington, June 30, 1798, became the wife of Robert Root and had five children. Anne Osborn, born March 26, 1800, married Jasper Lacey and had ten children. Mary, born Jan- uary 9, 1802, became the wife of Elijah French. Simon Nelson was born in Washington, Massachusetts, July 27, 1803. Calvin Parsons, born March 24, 1807, was married September 4, 1832, to Lorette Jackson and had four children. Milo, born March 9, 1810, was married February 24, 1833, to Chloe Ann B. Osborn and had two children. Newton, born March 27, 1813, served in the Semi- nole war, was afterward mate of a whaling vessel and died at sea. The death of Simon Henry, the father of this family, occurred June 26, 1854, in Bainbridge, Ohio, at the age of eighty-seven years. He was for many years a justice of the peace of that place and a promi- nent and influential citizen there. His wife, who was born in En- field, Connecticut, March 13, 1774, died in Bainbridge, June 15, 1847, at the age of seventy-three years. Both were laid to rest in the old southeast burying ground in Bainbridge.
John Henry, the grandfather of Judge Henry, was born in Washington, Massachusetts, September 29, 1796. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812 and soon afterward came to Ohio, ar- riving in this state before his parents and others of the family. He was a farmer and surveyor and was prominent in the public affairs of the community. He served as postmaster and also as justice of the peace at Bainbridge and was a very prominent and honored citi- zen of the locality. He wedded Polly Jaqua, and unto them were born nine children. His death occurred January 10, 1869, when he had reached the age of seventy-two years.
Captain Charles Eugene Henry, the second of the nine children of John and Polly (Jaqua) Henry, was born in Bainbridge, Geauga
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county, Ohio, November 29, 1835, on the farm where he spent his entire life save for brief intervals. His parents were both teachers and were lovers of books and the father not only filled various pub- lic offices but was also a Methodist class-leader. The log house in which Captain Henry spent his youthful days was far from being one of ignorance or squalor, and its atmosphere was one of intellec- tual culture and refinement. He pursued his studies in the old red schoolhouse, where he mastered the various branches of learning therein taught. In his youthful days he worked for neighboring farmers and before he was twenty-one had joined his brother-in- law, Henry Brewster, in the establishment and conduct of a saw- mill and cheese box factory in that part of the neighboring town of Auburn locally known as Bridge Creek. In the meantime he taught several terms of district school, interspersed with periods of study at the old Eclectic Institute in Hiram. There he came into inti- mate fellowship with that immortal coterie of kindred Hiram spir- its, which included among others, those familiarly known as Harry Rhodes, Augustus Williams, Burke Hinsdale, Henry White, Char- ley Dudley, Hiram Chamberlain and, last and chiefest, him in whose inspiring leadership they all exulted, James A. Garfield. Young Henry had met him years before at the Boynton's in Orange, just returned from the canal, and again when, on Garfield's first trip to Hiram to enter school there, he stayed over night in the Henry household that he might the next morning go to see and hear the piano for which that neighborhood was then distinguished. At Hiram when the war broke out, Henry, man-grown and with the home ties readjusted to his independence, was free to follow the bent of his hero worship and the spirit of patriotic sacrifice rife in the Eclectic, and therefore at Garfield's invitation and his country's call he enlisted September 20, 1861, as a private of Company A, Forty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a Hiram company of young men nearly all of whom were by education fitted to command but who were all content to follow when Garfield led. He was pro- moted to sergeant on the day of his enlistment and on the 25th of July, 1862, became second lieutenant. He served three years through Middle Creek, Pound Gap, Cumberland Gap, Big Spring, Chickasaw Bayou and Bluffs, Port Hindman, Milliken's Bend, Thompson's Hill (Port Gibson), where he was wounded May I, 1863, Champion Hills, Big Black River and the assault on Vicks- burg, wherein he was again wounded, severely, May 22, 1863. On the former date, May 1, 1863, he was commissioned first lieutenant. When partially recovered from his wound, he was assigned, Octo- ber 17, 1863, to the provost marshal's department under Colonel
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(now United States circuit judge) Don A. Pardee, and served as provost judge at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, until October, 1864, in the meantime having been promoted to the office of regimental ad- jutant August 22, 1864. Some three months later he was honorably discharged at the expiration of his term of service, and November 10, 1864, he married at Ravenna, a Hiram schoolmate, Sophia Wil- liams, sister to his friend and comrade, Major Augustus Williams and daughter of Frederick Williams, a pioneer of the Disciples, one of the first and succeeding boards of trustees of the Eclectic Institute, and a descendant in the seventh generation of Robert Wil- liams, of Roxbury, Massachusetts. They lived for a short time at Baton Rouge, where Captain Henry practiced law under the mili- tary régime and then returned to Ohio, to his ancestral farm, which, with the acres added in the course of years, remained his real home and chief delight throughout his life. From that refuge, however, he emerged from time to time into public and semi-public service, first in the postoffice department as postmaster, succeeding his father, at Pond, now Geauga Lake, from October 29, 1867; as route agent from October, 1869; as a special agent from 1872; and as inspector from 1880. He was appointed marshal of the District of Colum- bia, under President Garfield, May 16, 1881, and served until after the trial and execution of the President's assassin. In 1885 he was designated special master commissioner of the United States circuit court at New Orleans to investigate the great railway strike on the Gould roads in the southwest, then in the custody of that court. He remained there in the service of the receivers of the Texas & Pacific Railway and their successors until 1891. In Dallas, Texas, he was meanwhile elected commander of the large Grand Army Post there. In 1892 he was by his old-time friend, Secretary of Treasury Charles Foster, appointed inspector of public buildings. During the fol- lowing winter and spring he went on a successful extradition mis- sion into the interior of Brazil. A year later another like mission took him to Central America for the American Surety Company, in whose service he continued until 1902, when failing health, su- perinduced by malarial fever contracted in Costa Rica, compelled him to desist. He died in Cleveland on the 3d of November, 1906. He was for more than thirty years a member of the Christian church and also one of the board of trustees of Hiram College, being for a considerable period president of the board. He was also a Com- panion in the Loyal Legion, a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar, the permanent secretary of his Regimental Society, and often served officially on his home school board and in the local agricultural and early settlers societies of Geauga county. He wrote
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much for the Ohio Farmer, Cleveland Leader and other papers. He is survived by his widow and the three eldest of their five chil- dren: Frederick A. Henry, whose name introduces this record; Marcia Henry, formerly lady principal at Hiram and now teacher of English in the Cleveland Central high school; and Mary A., the wife of A. G. Webb. Don Pardee died in infancy, while James Garfield, who graduated from Hiram College, is also deceased.
In the maternal line Judge Henry is also a representative of one of the oldest families of Massachusetts. His mother was the eighth in descent from Robert Williams, of Roxbury, Massachu- setts, 1637, the line being Robert, Deacon Samuel, Samuel, John, Joseph, Ebenezer, Frederick and Sophia. Of these Ebenezer Wil- liams was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, to which he was called by the republican party, of which Thomas Jefferson was the leader, while Simon Henry, the great-grandfather in the pater- nal line was sent as a whig representative to the general assembly of Massachusetts. Mrs. Sophia (Williams) Henry was born in Shalersville, Portage county, Ohio, November 9, 1840, and now makes her home in Cleveland during the winter months, while she spends the summer seasons at Geauga Lake, Ohio. Her grand- father, Ebenezer Williams, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, February 11, 1759, and was married in Warwick, Massachusetts, in January, 1782, to Sarah Chadwick, a daughter of John, Jr., and Sarah (Johnson) Chadwick, of Worcester, Massachusetts. He rep- resented Warwick in the general court at Boston in 1808, as an anti- federalist, or republican. He removed to Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio, in 1815, where he died in September, 1816, and his wife in September, 1817.
Frederick Williams, the father of Mrs. Sophia Henry, was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, March 2, 1799, and removed with his parents to Ravenna, Ohio, in 1815. From 1832 until 1840 he was county treasurer of Portage county and he also served for sixteen years as infirmary director. In politics, originally a democrat, the slavery issue made him a republican. A Universalist in his re- ligious views, he was converted to the faith of the Disciples of Christ, and occasionally preached in their pulpits. He was one of the incorporators and a member of the first and subsequent boards of trustees of The Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which after- ward, on a resolution introduced by him, became Hiram College. While thus serving he was in the board meeting to which President Garfield as a youth applied for the place of school janitor to earn his tuition, and through all his life the future president was often a welcome guest in his home. Frederick Williams was married Sep-
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tember 17, 1828, to Miss Martia Underwood, a daughter of Alpheus and Mary (Wallbridge) Underwood, who was born in Monson, Massachusetts, April 24, 1805, and died in Ravenna, Ohio, August 18, 1882. Frederick William also died in Ravenna on the 18th of January, 1888.
Both the father and mother of Judge Henry were under Presi- dent Garfield's tutelage at Hiram College, and the mother is men- tioned by him in his address on Almeda A. Booth (Garfield's Works, Vol. II, p. 306) as having taken part in a commencement play in 1859. The father was a personal friend of President Gar- field, and the latter gave him the credit of having done more than any other man to bring about his election as United States senator from Ohio in 1880, a few months before his nomination for the presidency.
Judge Henry acquired his early education in the district schools of Bainbridge township and afterward spent five years in the Cleve- land public schools, including a half year in the Central high school. Later he attended Hiram College, where he pursued a pre- paratory course and then entered upon the regular collegiate course, being graduated from Hiram College in 1888 with the Bachelor of Arts degree. During that period he taught school for about a year. He afterward went to Dallas, Texas, and was employed in the stock claim department of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company. On his return to the north he took up the study of law in the University of Michigan and after two years was graduated therefrom in 1891 with the A. M. and LL. B. degrees. He was president of the law class in his junior year, was poet in the senior year and was chair- man of the football committee of the university.
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