Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 104

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 104

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In his manner as a practitioner Mr. Stan- bery was a model. Always courteous and dignified, he was nevertheless as alert and ready as a soldier on guard. He was quick to perceive the slightest weakness of an op- ponent's cause, and on it dealt his blow with overwhelming suddenness.

His manner in the examination of witnesses was admirable. He never bullied nor at- tempted to mislead them, but with sincere frankness and winning address would secure from the reluctant or the unfair witness often full and true answers to his questions.

His language was of the purest English and his style free from all the glitter of mere words. To court and jury alike his speeches were clear. His arguments on the law were models of orderly arrangement and logical force, often eloquent from these very qualities. His addresses to the jury were masterly dis- cussions of the facts, ingeniously mustered to sustain his views, and were exceedingly at- tractive.

In writing he was a marvel of accuracy. Often his manuscripts were printed from the original draft, with scarcely a correction. He was systematic and thorough as a worker, never putting off anything for a more con- venient season, but at the earliest moment analyzing his case and settling the law and the facts which would control it."

WILLIAM DENNISON, the first of Ohio's trio of war governors, was born at Cincinnati, Nov. 23, 1815. His father was the pro- prietor of the highly popular and widely known " Dennison House " in that city, and a grand specimen of the old style of Western landlords. He graduated from Miami uni- versity, and entered upon the study of law in Cincinnati in the office of Nathaniel G. Pen- dleton and Stephen Fales. In 1840 he was admitted to the bar; shortly afterward he married a daughter of William Neil, of Columbus, the famous stage proprietor in the days of stages, and removed to that city.

He practised law until 1848, when he was elected to the Ohio Senate by the Whig party. About this time he became interested in banking and railroads, was made president of the Exchange Bank and also of the Columbus and Xenia Railroad Company. In 1856 he was a delegate to the convention which inangurated the Republican party, and the same year took a prominent part in the convention which nominated John C. Fremont for the Presidency. In 1860 he was elected governor of Ohio by the Repub- licans. He was elected chairman of the Re- publican convention at Baltimore which in 1864 renominated President Lincoln, and was by him appointed Postmaster-General, hold-

654

FRANKLIN COUNTY.

ing that position until 1866, when President Johnson began to assail the Union party and he resigned his portfolio. In 1880 he was a leader of the friends of Senator John Sher- man in the effort to secure his nomination in the National Republican Convention of that year. Governor Dennison accumulated a hand- some fortune in his private business and con- tributed largely to Dennison College at Gran- ville, Ohio. He died at his home in Colum- bus, June 15, 1882.

Governor Dennison was a man of fine social connections, tall, courtly and elegant in manner, with a foresight and ability unsus- pected by those not intimately associated with him, but which was fully demonstrated during his administration as Governor of Ohio, during which the true, pure metal of the man rang out with a resonance that should have left no doubt as to its composition. Notwithstanding that in his political debates he had given evidence of ability and unex- pected reserve power, the general public with singular pertinacity held to the opinion that he was superficial and of mediocre ability, and even after he had clearly shown by the valuable results of his measures that he had been misunderstood and his ability underestimated the Ohio public were slow to acknowledge his merits and give him due credit for his valuable services to the State and nation.

In the confusion and excitement at the out- break of the war almost every citizen felt that he knew just what ought to be done. Troops should be raised and sent to the front at once. Such matters as equipment, or- ganization, etc., did not enter into their cal- culations, and because this was not done by the saying of it the governor must be in- efficient. The critics having prejudged Gov- ernor Dennison said so, and it seemed as though each citizen had received a special commission to join the critics and malign him. Every step he took brought down senseless abuse from every quarter. Denni- son bore it nobly, not a word of reproach es- caped him, and when for some months the newspapers of the State were abusing him for mismanagement at Camp Dennison he ut- tered no complaint, but generously kept si- lence, when in truth he had at that time no more to do with the management of Camp Dennison than any private citizen of the State, it being under the control of the na- tional government. A word from the officer in command at Camp Dennison would have shown the injustice of this abuse. White- law Reid, in his comprehensive and valuable work on "Ohio in the War," says in refer- ence to this unjust criticism : "To a man of his sensitive temper and desire for the good opinion of others the unjust and measureless abuse to which his earnest efforts had sub- jected him was agonizing. But he suffered no sign to escape him, and with a single- hearted devotion and an ability for which the State had not credited him he proceeded to the measures most necessary in the crisis."

He succeeded in favorably placing the loan

authorized by the Million War bill. Having secured money, the "sinews of war," he then looked around for arms, of which Ohio had a very meagre supply, and learning that Illinois had a considerable number, he se- cured five thousand muskets from thence and proposed a measure for uniting all the troops of the Mississippi valley under one major- general.

It was through Gov. Dennison that West Virginia was saved to the Union. He as- sured the Unionists of that State that if they would break off from old Virginia and ad- here to the Union, Ohio would send the ne- cessary military force to protect them. And when afterward it became necessary to redeem this pledge Gov. Dennison sent Ohio militia (not mustered into the United States service at all), who, uniting with the loyal citizens, drove the rebels out of West Virginia.

His course in dealing with Kentucky at the commencement of the war, although after- ward proven to be a mistaken one, was the same as that adopted by the general govern- ment.

One action of Gov. Dennison's during his administration as governor shows him to have been a man courageous enough to meet almost any emergency. When the general government was about to refund to Ohio money used for military purposes the State auditor and the attorney-general decided that this money could not legally be used again for military purposes. Dennison there- fore, by means of his personal agents, caused it to be collected from the United States gov- ernment and used it for military purposes in- stead of turning it into the Ohio State Treas- ury. It was again refunded to Ohio, his agents again collected it, and it was thus used over and over again, so that he intercepted in all $1,077,600. The measure was a high- handed one, but thoroughly justifiable upon the ground of public necessity. For every dollar he presented satisfactory accounts and vouchers to the Legislature, and not a shadow was ever cast upon the integrity of the gov- ernor or his officers through whom it was dis- bursed.

Reid's "Ohio in the War" sums up his administration as follows : "Without prac- tical knowledge of war, without arms for a regiment, or rations for a company, or uni- forms for a corporal's guard at the outset, and without the means or the needful prep- arations for purchase or manufacture, the administration had, in less than a month, raised, organized and sent to the field or to the camps of the government an army larger than that of the whole United States three months before. Within the State this won- derful achievement was saluted with com- plaints about extravagance in rations, defects in uniforms, about everything which the authorities did, and about everything which they left undone. Without the State the noise of this clamor was not heard, and men saw only the splendid results. The general government was therefore lavish in its praise. The governor under whom these

655

FRANKLIN COUNTY.

things were done grew to be the most influ- ential of all the State executives at Wash- ington at the very time when at home he was the most unpopular of all who had within the memory of a generation been elevated to that office.

It was his misfortune that the first rush of the war's responsibilities fell upon him. Those who came after were enabled to walk by the light of his painful experience. If he had been as well known to the State and as highly esteemed two years before the out- break of the war as he was two years after- ward, his burdens would have been greatly lightened. But he was not credited with the ability he really possessed, and in their distrust men found it very easy to assure themselves that he was to blame for every- thing.

He met the first shock of the con- test, and in the midst of difficulties which now seem scarcely credible organized twenty- three regiments for the three months' ser- vice and eighty-two for three years, nearly one-half the entire number of organizations sent to the field by the State during the war. He left the State credited with 20,751 soldiers above and beyond all calls made by the Presi- dent upon her. He handled large sums of money beyond the authority of law and with- out the safeguard of bonded agents, and his accounts were honorably closed."

His fate was indeed a singular one. The honest, patriotic discharge of his duty made him odious to an intensely patriotic people. With the end of his service he began to be appreciated. He was the most trusted coun- sellor and efficient aid to his successor. Though no more than a private citizen, he came to be recognized in and out of the State as her best spokesman in the departments at Washington. Those who followed him on the public stage, though with the light of his experience to guide them, did not (as in the case of most military men similarly situated) leave him in obscurity. Gradually he even became popular. The State began to reckon him among her leading public men, the party selected him as President of the great Na- tional Convention at Baltimore and Mr. Lin- coln called him to his Cabinet."

JOSEPH R. SWAN, jurist, was born in Westernville, Oneida county, N. Y., in 1802, and in 1824, after studying law with his uncle, Gustavus Swan, in Columbus, he was admitted to the bar. In 1854 the opponents of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise elected him Supreme Judge by over 77,000 majority, and he eventually became Chief- Justice. His prominent characteristic on the bench was great conscientiousness, so that neither personal interest nor sympathy could in any manner influence his judgment of right or law. He prepared a number of ele- mentary law books which stand very high with the profession and have been of wide- spread utility, as "Swan's Treatise," an in- dispensable companion for every justice of the peace ; "Guide for Executors and Ad- ministrators." "Swan's Revised Statutes,"

"Pleading and Practice," etc. He died De- cember 18, 1884.

The late NOAH H. SWAYNE, Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1804, of Quaker parentage. When nineteen years of age he was admitted to the bar and, disliking slavery, came to Ohio. At the age

NOAHI H. SWAYNE.

of twenty-six he was appointed by Gen. Jackson United States Attorney for Ohio, when he removed from Coshocton, where he was settled, to Columbus. In 1839 President Van Buren appointed him United States District Attorney. He soon acquired high reputation as a jury lawyer, his peculiar forte being the examination of witnesses and in skilful analysis of testimony. On retiring from this office he took no part in politics until 1856, when in the Fremont campaign he made speeches against the extension of slavery.

In February, 1862, after the decease of Justice McLean, of the Supreme Court, he was appointed by President Lincoln his suc- cessor. This was by the unanimous recom- mendation of the Ohio delegation in Con- gress and in accordance with the oft-repeated expressed desire of Justice McLean, in his lifetime, that in the event of his decease he would be the best person for his successor. This opinion of Judge McLcan was coin- cided in by the leading members of the bar in Washington City, who had witnessed his display of eminent ability in some cases which he had argued before the Supreme Court and which also had a like effect upon the judges before whom he had appeared. Hc left several sons, the oldest of whom is the eminent Gen. Wager Swayne, now of New York city, whose first name was the family name of his mother, a Virginia lady. Wager Swayne was at one time a partner with his father in the practice of the law. Another son, F. B. Swayne, is now a law partner with a son of ex-President Hayes in Toledo.

556

FRANKLIN COUNTY.

ALLEN G. THURMAN was born the son of a clergyman, Rev. P. Thurman, in Lynch- burgh, Va., November 13, 1813. The next year the family removed to Chillicothe. He was educated at the Chillicothe Academy, and studied law with his uncle, William Allen, later governor, and Noah H. Swayne, after- ward judge of the United States Supreme Court. In 1835 he began the practice at Chillicothe. In 1844 he was married to Mary Dun, of Kentucky, and also elected to Congress. In 1851 he was elected a judge of the superior court of Ohio, and from 1854 to 1856, the date of the expiration of his term, was chief-justice. The "Ohio Reports' containing his decisions gave him a wide reputation as a lawyer and jurist. In 1853 he removed to Columbus, and on leaving the bench resumed his law practice. "His opin- ions on important legal questions were much sought after and relied upon by the bar all over the State, and he was retained as coun- sel in the supreme court in many of the most important cases. He has always been a laborious student ; indefatigable in the prepa- ration of his cases, and a forcible and direct speaker, who wastes no time on immaterial points."

In 1868 he was first elected to the United States Senate, and was a leading member for many years, where he became chairman of the judiciary committee.

"In the session of 1877-78 he reported the bill commonly called the 'Thurman Bill,' to compel the Pacific railroads to secure their indebtedness of nearly seventy millions to the government, and supported it by a written report sustaining its constitutionality and propriety, and also by elaborate and able arguments in the debate that followed. The constitutionality of the bill was relentlessly assailed by its opponents, but the law has been sustained by the Supreme Court.

Judge Thurman has always been a Demo- crat of the strictest sect, and not inclined to run after temporary expedients in politics. He firmly believes that the welfare of the country depends upon the preservation of the Democratic party," and to a singular degree he has the respect of the public, irrespective of parties, for integrity and uprightness. In selecting him as their candidate in the can- vass of 1888 for the high office of Vice- President the Democratic party is widely judged to have especially honored them- selves.

Prof. LEO LESQUEREUX, palæo-botanist, was born in 1806, in Fleurier, canton of Neu- chatel, Switzerland1. His ancestors were Hu- guenots, fugitives from France after the Edict of Nantes. He was destined for the church, but, at nineteen years of age, when he entered the Academy of Neuchatel, he met Arnold Guyot, and together they became much interested in natural science, toward which Lesquereux's tastes and disposition had always inclined. Completing his course in the Academy of Neuchatel, he went to Eisenach, and taught the French language while perfecting himself in the German lan-

guage, preparatory to entering the University of Berlin.

In 1829 he returned to Switzerland as prin- cipal of the College of La Chaux-de-Fonds, canton of Neuchatel, but, becoming deaf, he gave up this position, and for twelve years supported himself by engraving watch-cases and manufacturing watch-springs; in the meanwhile, however, he continued his studies and researches in natural science, devoting his attention particularly to mosses and fossil botany. In 1832 he married Baroness Sophia von Wolffskeel, daughter of Gen. von Wolff- skeel, of Eisenach, Saxe-Weimer.

His researches on peat-formations led to his being commissioned in 1845 by the Prus- sian government to make explorations on the peat-bogs of Europe. In 1848 he removed to the United States, first locating at Cam- bridge, Mass., and later at Columbus, Ohio, where he now resides. Appleton's "Bio- graphical Cyclopædia " says of his career in the United States :

"He became associated with William S. Sullivant in the study of American bryology. Together they published ' Musci Americana Exsiccati ' (1856 ; 2d ed., 1865), and subse- quently he assisted Mr. Sullivant in the ex- amination of the mosses that had been col- lected by Capt. Charles Wilkes on the South Pacific exploring expedition and by Lieut. Amiel W. Whipple on the Pacific railroad exploration, and finally in his 'Icones Mus- corum' (Cambridge, 1864). His own most valuable researches, beginning in 1850, were studies of the coal formations of Ohio, Penn- sylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas, on which he contributed memoirs to the re- ports of the State surveys. His investiga- tions on the coal flora of Pennsylvania are of special value. He prepared a 'Catalogue of the Fossil Plants which have been Named or Described from the Coal Measures of North America ' for the reports of Henry D. Rogers in 1858, and in 1884 furnished 'The Coal Flora ' (3 vols. of text, with an atlas) for the second geological survey of Pennsylvania, which is regarded as the most important work on carboniferous plants that has thus far ap- peared in the United States. Since 1868 parts of the material in fossil botany have been referred to him by the various national surveys in the field, and he has contributed to their reports the results of his investiga- tions. He is a member of more than twenty scientific societies in the United States and Europe, and in 1864 was the first member that was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The titles of his publications are more than fifty in number, and include twelve important volumes on the natural history of the United States, besides which he has pub- lished 'Letters Written on Germany' (Neu- chatel, 1846) and 'Letters Written on Amer- ica' (1847-55). He has also published with Thomas P. James, 'Manual of the Mosses of North America ' (Boston, 1884)."

A few years since a leading New York journal made the statement that it was some- what remarkable that a city like Columbus

FRANKLIN COUNTY.

657

should be the home of three such eminent scientists as Prof. Leo Lesquereux, William S. Sullivant, and Dr. T. G. WORMLEY. Of the first two sketches have already been given ; the latter, now of the University of Pennsylvania, but formerly professor of chemistry and toxicology in the Starling Med-

ical College at Columbus, is the author of "the most valuable contribution to toxicology and medical jurisprudence that America has ever made to medical science, and in many of its features is nusurpassed by any coutri- bution to these departments from European science."

Mrs. T. G. Wormley ad nat. del. et sculp.

FORMS OF POISON CRYSTALS.

[The above are copies of two of the seventy-eight engravings in the "Micro-Chemistry of Poisons," which show the exact appearance of the Poison Crystals after doing their work of death upon cats and dogs with different poisons, and were obtained by analysing their blood and the contents of their stomachs.]

This work is an elaborate chemical and microscopical analysis of the nature and operation of many different poisons in their relation to animal life. It is the result of years of patient experimenting, and at the cost of the lives of some 2,000 cats and dogs of the city of Columbus, whose blood and contents of whose stomachs were analyzed to determine the exact appearance of the poison- crystals after producing death.

That the exact appearance of these poison- crystals should be reproduced with the utmost accuracy was absolutely necessary to give to the world the benefits of Dr. Wormley's re- searches.

Throughout the course of his experiments he had been assisted by his wife, who, with remarkable accuracy and delicacy, had made drawings of the crystalline forms. This was a work requiring the most patient and perse- vering labor, the difficulty of which was im- measurably increased by the volatile character of the forms to be represented, which could only be seen under the microscope, and then but for a few seconds at a time, necessitating their reproduction again and again until the drawings were completed.

When the work was ready for publication the most distinguished engravers in the coun- try were consulted as to the engraving of the drawings. They all agreed that it would take

years of labor, almost a fortune of money, and that there were but one or two engravers in America possessed of the skill necessary to do the work properly. One of them en- graved a plate but it was not acceptable.

Among other engravers consulted was Mr. F. E. Jones, of Cincinnati, long connected with the Methodist Book Concern. Im- pressed by the exceeding delicacy of the draw- ings, he said to Dr. Wormley, "Whoever made the drawings must engrave the plates." "Impossible," replied the doctor, "for the person who drew the figures knows nothing of engraving." "Whoever can draw like that on paper," said Mr. Jones, "can etch on steel." " It was my wife," said the doc- tor, beginning almost to despair of having his plates engraved, " and she knows nothing of etching or any other part of engraving."

From an article published in the Ladies' Repository for January, 1868, we quote the following : "The doctor was at length per- suaded to procure a steel plate and points. The artist prepared the plate, gave a few items of instruction and explanation to the doctor who was to carry his message and in- structions home to his wife.

The indefatigable wife accepted the respon- sibility and went to work, and in a few weeks came to the artist's office with her etched plate, the product of her own hand, being the

658

FRANKLIN COUNTY.

first she had ever seen. She had no knowl- edge how to take an impression from the plate, nor an engraver's press with which to do it if she had. She was delighted and encouraged when she saw a proof of her first effort which was then taken for her by Mr. Jones. It was so good that with a little correction it might have been used ; but she felt that she could do better, and the plate was cancelled. The number of steel plates necessary for the whole work was then ordered. Mrs. Wormley be- gan the labor and in less than a year finished the etching of thirteen plates, containing in all seventy-eight figures.

Encouraged by her success in the use of the point, Mrs. Wormley thought she would try the graver, a tool she had not yet used, and necessary in the finishing of the plates. Her success in that was equal to her etching. She then requested permission to use the ruling machine, of which she knew as little as she had known of the point or graver. In a little while she was mistress of the ruler, , and presented to her husband the whole series of plates, the delicate touches of which defy criticism, even under the scrutiny of a micro- scope ! Indeed, the details of many of the figures can only be obtained by means of the lens. They have been pronounced by com- petent judges the finest set of microscopic plates ever produced in Europe or America. We look upon the result as one of the most wonderful achievements of womanly patience, skill, and perseverance, the full greatness of which it is impossible to make apparent to those who are unacquainted with the difficulties and mysteries of the engraver's art. "

Dr. Wormley, although born at Carlisle, Pa., was a resident of Ohio for about a quar- ter of a century. He has been elected to honorary membership in many of the most prominent scientific societies of Europe and America. His wife is a native of Ohio, a daughter of Mr. John L. Gill, one of the oldest residents of Columbus, and first presi- dent of the Columbus board of trade, and to whom the city is more indebted than to any other citizen for the development of its manufacturing interests.

PHINEAS BACON WILCOX was born in 1798 on "Forty Rod Hill," his father's farm near Middletown, Conn., and died at Columbus in 1863. He was educated at Yale, came to Columbus in 1824, and became eminent as a land and also as a chancery law-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 104

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006