Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 82

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 82

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).

an ardent and active supporter of the admin- istration of Mr. Lincoln, of whom he was a trusted friend and counsellor. The President frequently sent for him to come to Washing- ton to advise him in the most important prob- lems of supply and transportation of the army. He tendered him an appointment as brigadier-general, for the purpose of superin- tending the construction of a military railway from Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee, a project which was, Mr. Stone's advice, afterwards relinquished by the gov- ernment.

Soon after the war closed he met with a great misfortune in the death of his only son, Adelbert Barnes Stone, who was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut river, being at the time a student in Yale college.

In 1873, at the earnest solicitation of Com- modore Vanderbilt and other large stock- holders of the Lake Shore road, he assumed charge of that road as managing director, but two years afterwards resigned it, and from that time onward steadily declined any posi- tion involving great labor or responsibility. He had for many years been planning in his mind a series of important benefactions to the city of Cleveland, and he now devoted his leisure to carrying them successively into effect. He first built and endowed the Home for Aged Women on Kennard street, a beau- tiful and estimable charity, by means of which ladies stricken in years and misfortune find a peaceful refuge for their age. His next work was the construction and presentation to the Children's Aid Society of the commodious stone edifice on Detroit street, as a place of shelter and instruction for destitute children gathered up by that admirable institution from the streets and saved from lives of vice and ignorance to be placed in respectable Christian homes. When this work was com- pleted he made ready in his mind for the greatest and most important of his benefac- tions. On condition that the Western Re- serve college at Hudson should remove to Cleveland and assume in its classical depart- ment the name of his lost and lamented son, he endowed it with the munificent sum of half a million dollars, which at his desire after his death was increased by his family to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars. In each of these cases he gave not merely his money, but his constant labor and supervision in all the details of construction and adminis- tration. He gave of himself as liberally as of his means.

He had a mind remarkable for its grasp both of great and minute matters. In discuss- ing the construction of a railroad he could compute, without putting pencil to paper, the probable expenses of engineering and equip- ment, amounting to millions; and he was equally ready in the smallest things. . .

He remained to the end of his days one of the simplest and most unassuming of men. This does not mean that there was anything of diffidence or distrust in his nature ; on the contrary, he was perfectly aware of his own powers and confident in the exercise of them.

519

CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

But he never lost the inherent American democracy of his character ; the puddler from the rolling mill, the brakeman of the railroad was always as sure of a courteous and consid- erate hearing from him as a senator or a mil- lionaire. There was no man in the country great enough to daunt him, and none so sim- ple as to receive from him the treatment of an inferior. He was a man extraordinarily clean in heart, in hand and in lips."

JEPHTHA H. WADE was born in Seneca county, N. Y., August 11, 1811, the son of a surveyor and civil engineer. He early gave evidence of great mechanical and inventive ability, combined with great executive ca- pacity. Before arriving at the age of twenty- one he was the owner of a large sash and blind factory. He studied portrait-painting under Randall Palmer, a celebrated artist, and achieved considerable reputation as an artist, and when about thirty years of age became interested in the discovery of Da- guerre. Being then located at Adrian, Mich., he procured a camera and took the first da- guerreotype ever made west of New York ; but about this time the invention of tele- graphy attracted his attention, and he opened and equipped the Jackson office, along the Michigan Central line, the first road built west of Buffalo.

Later he entered into the construction of telegraph lines in Ohio and other Western States, which were known as Wade's lines. He made many important telegraphic inven- tions and improvements, among which was Wade's insulator. He was also the first to enclose a sub-marine cable in iron armor, on a line across the Mississippi river at St. Louis. This was a very important invention, as, through it, the crossing of oceans and large bodies of water was made practicable.

The numerous rival telegraph companies which had sprung up in the West were en- gaged in a ruinous competition when a con- solidation was effected under the name of the Western Union Telegraph Company, with Mr. Wade as general manager.

Largely through Mr. Wade's efforts the construction of a trans-continental line was commenced under his superintendence in the spring of 1861, and through his efficient management, in October of the same year communication opened. In California he consolidated the competing lines and was made the first president of the Pacific Tel- egraph Company, which was in turn consol- idated with the Western Union Company and Mr. Wade made president of the entire con- solidation, a position which he filled until 1867, when he retired from active business life on account of ill health. His retirement, however, did not preclude his engaging in an advisory capacity in many large enterprises. He is a leading director in several factories, banks, railroads and other institutions.

His great interest and enterprise in the development of the city of Cleveland has resulted in great benefit to that city, he hav- ing opened and improved many streets and localities and originated the Lake View Cem-

etery association, with its more than 300 acres of tastefully arranged grounds. At great expense he beautified an extensive tract of land adjoining Euclid avenue, known as Wade Park, and opened it to the enjoyment of the public. He also built for the Cleve- land Protestant Children's Home a fine large fire-proof building, with accommodations for from 100 to 150 children.

Mr. Wade's life has been one of great benefit and usefulness to his fellow-men, not only in his private and public charities, but in opening up new avenues of industry, thus contributing to the wealth and comfort of the community at large.

Colonel CHARLES WHITTLESEY was born in Southington, Conn., October 4, 1808. His father, Asaph Whittlesey, wife and two children, started in the spring of 1813 for Tallmadge, Portage county. The wilder- ness was full of perils from savage men and beasts and the journey a long and hard one, with many incidents of trial, so that their destination was not reached until July. His father having settled at Tallmadge, Charles spent his summers in work on the farm and winters at school. Tallmadge was settled by a colony of New England Congre- gationalists, and the religious austerity and strict morality of the inhabitants had much influence upon the mind of Charles, who had inherited from his father a vigorous mind and great energy and from his mother stu- dious habits and literary tastes. Reared midst the severe surroundings of the early pioneer days, he learned to realize at an early age the earnestness of life and the vast possibilities of this new country. He saw Ohio develop from a wilderness to a wonder- fully productive and intelligent common- wealth of more than 3,000,000 inhabitants.

In 1827 he entered West Point, graduating therefrom in 1831, when he became brevet second-lieutenant in the Sixth United States Infantry.

Later he exchanged with a brother officer into the Fifth United States Infantry, with headquarters at Mackinaw, and started in November on a vessel through the lakes, reaching his post after a voyage of much hardship and suffering from the severity of the weather. Here he was assigned to the company of Capt. Martin Scott, the famous shot and hunter.

At the close of the Black Hawk war Lieut. Whittlesey resigned from the army and opened a law office in Cleveland, and in connection with his law practice was occupied as part owner and co-editor of the Whig and Herald until 1837, when he was appointed assistant geologist of the Ohio Survey. This was disbanded in 1839 through lack of appro- priations to carry on the work, but not before great and permanent good had been done in disclosing the mineral wealth of the State, thus laying the foundation for immense man- ufacturing industries.

During this survey Col. Whittlesey had become much interested in the geology and ancient earthworks of the State, and after

520

CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

itsdisbandment induced Mr. Joseph Sullivant, a wealthy gentleman of Columbus, much in- terested in archæology, to furnish means for continuing investigation into the works of the Mound Builders, with a view to a joint pub- lication.

During the years 1839 and 1840, under this arrangement, he examined nearly all the remaining earthworks then discovered, but nothing was done toward publication of the results until some years later, when much of the material gathered was used in the publi- 'cation by the Smithsonian Institute of the great work of Squier & Davis. The first volume of that work says :

"Among the most zealous investigators in the field of American antiquarian research is Charles Whittlesey, Esq., of Cleveland, for- merly topographical engineer of Ohio. His surveys and observations, carried on for many years and over a wide field, have been both numerous and accurate, and are among the most valuable in all respects of any hitherto made. Although Mr. Whittlesey, in con- junction with Joseph Sullivant, Esq., of Columbus, originally contemplated a joint work in which the results of his investiga- tions should be embodied, he has neverthe- less, with a liberality which will be not less appreciated by the public than by the authors, contributed to this memoir about twenty plans of ancient works which, with the accompanying explanations and general ob- servations, will be found embodied in the following pages.

It is to be hoped the public may be put in possession of the entire results of Mr. Whit- tlesey's labor, which could not fail of adding greatly to our stock of knowledge on this in- teresting subject."

Among other discoveries of Mr. Whittle- sey in connection with the ancient earth- works of Ohio was that the Mound Builders were two different races of people, the "long- headed and short-headed," so called from the shape of their skulls.

In 1844 Mr. Whittlesey made an agricul- tural survey of Hamilton county. That year a great excitement was created by the explo- rations and reports of Dr. Houghton in the copper mines of Michigan. Companies were organized for their development and from Point Keweenaw to the Montreal river the forests swarmed with adventurers as eager and hopeful as those of California in 1848. Iron ore was beneath their notice.

A company was organized in Detroit in 1845 and Mr. Whittlesey appointed geol- ogist. In August they launched their boat and pulled away for Copper harbor, and thence to the region between Portage lake and the Ontonagon river, where the Algon- quin and Douglass Houghton mines were opened. The party narrowly escaped drown- ing the night they landed.

Col. Whittlesey has given an interesting account of their adventures in an article en- titled "Two Months in the Copper Regions," published in the National Magazine of New York city.

In 1847 he was employed by the United States government to make a geological sur- vey of the land about Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi river. His survey was of very great value and gave proofs of great scientific ability and judgment. He was afterwards engaged by the State of Wiscon- sin to make a survey of that State, which work was uncompleted when the war of the rebellion broke out.

Upon his return to Cleveland, Col. Whit- tlesey became identified with a local military organization which was tendered to Gen. Scott early in the year 1861. On April 17, 1861, he became assistant quartermaster gen- eral upon the Governor's staff, and he was immediately sent to the field in Western Vir- ginia, where he served during the three months' term as State military engineer with the Ohio troops. He re-entered the three years' service as colonel of the Twentieth regi- ment Ohio volunteers. He was detailed as chief engineer of the department of Ohio, and at the battle of Shiloh on the second day of the fight was placed in the command of the third brigade of Gen. Wallace's division, and was specially commended for bravery. Soon after this engagement he resigned from the army. Gen. Grant endorsed his applica- tion : "We cannot afford to lose so good an officer." The following letter written soon after his decease shows in what estimation he was held by his army associates.

"CINCINNATI, O., Nov. 10, 1886.

"DEAR MRS. WHITTLESEY : Your noble husband has got release from the pains and ills that made life a burden. His active life was a lesson to us how to live. His latter years showed us how to endure. To all of us in the Twentieth regiment he seemed a father. I do not know any other colonel that was so revered by his regiment. Since the war he has constantly surprised me with his incessant literary and scientific activity. Al- ways his character was an example and an incitement.

"Very truly yours, "M. F. FORCE."

After retiring from the army Col. Whittle sey again turned his attention to explorations in the Lake Superior and Upper Mississippi river basins, and "new additions to the min- eral wealth of the country were the result of his surveys and researches."

In 1867 Col. Whittlesey organized the Western Reserve Historical Society, and was its president until his death, which occurred in 1866. The latter years of Col. Whittle- sey's life were full of ceaseless activity and research in scientific and historical fields. His published literary works were very numerous, commencing in 1833 and ending with his death ; they number one hundred and ninety- one books and pamphlets.

"His contributions to literature," said the New York Herald, "have attracted wide attention among the scientific men of Europe and America !" and adds, "he was largely

THE OLD WHITTLESEY HOMESTEAD, EUCLID AVENUE.

Chata Whittlesen-

(521)

OHIO'S THREE WAR GOVERNORS.

523

CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

instrumental in discovering and causing the development of the great iron and copper re- gions of Lake Superior.'

Judge Baldwin, from whose sketch of Col. Whittlesey in the "Magazine of Western History " we take most of the facts given in this sketch, says :

"As an American archaeologist Col. Whit- tlesey was very learned and thorough. He had in Ohio the advantage of surveying its wonderful works at an early date. He had, too, that cool poise and self-possession that prevented his enthusiasm from coloring his judgment. He completely avoided errors into which a large share of archaeologists fall. The scanty information as to the past and its romantic interest lead to easy but dangerous theories, and even suffers the practice of many impositions. He was of late years of great service in exposing frauds, and thereby helped the science to a healthy tone. It may be well enough to say that in one of his tracts he ex- posed, on what was apparently the best evi- dence, the supposed falsity of the Cincinnati tablet, so called. Its authenticity was de- fended by Mr. Robert Clarke, of Cincinnati, successfully and convincingly to Col. Whittle- sey himself. I was with the colonel when he first heard of the successful defence, and with a mutual friend who thought he might be chagrined, but he was so much more inter- ested in the truth for its own sake than in his relations to it that he appeared much pleased with the result.

" He impressed his associates as being full of learning, not from books but nevertheless of all around-the roads, the fields, the sky, men, animals or plants. Charming it was to be with him in excursions ; that was really life and elevated the mind and heart."

He was a profoundly religious man, never ostentatiously so, but to him religion and science were twin and inseparable compan- ions. They were in his life and thought, and he wished to and did live to express in print his sense that the God of science was the God of religion, and that the "Maker had not lost power over the thing made."

Some literary characters of national re- putation have been identified with Cleve- . land. Early among American humorists was CHARLES F. BROWNE, "Artemus Ward." His wit first scintillated here and later came in to brighten some of the dark days of Abraham Lincoln ; and JOHN HAY has his home here, the author of "Castilian Days" and "Little Breeches," and whose writings upon Mr. Lincoln are of such prime value as to give him an enduring reputation. The city was the girlhood and early womanhood home of CONSTANCE FENNIMORE WOOLSON, who wrote "East Angels" and "Anne," and likewise is the birth-place and early home of another female writer of children's books and pleasing verses, Sarah Woolsey, under the pen-name of Susan Coolidge ; and then a third, Mrs. Sarah Knowles Bolton, who although not Chio-born is Ohio-living.

TRAVELLING NOIES.

When I first knew Cleveland, Row about half a century ago, it was a small place with only a few thousand people. Even then it had a distinction of being an attractive spot from the beauty of its situation and adorn- ments of trees and shrubbery and was called "the Forest City." The people of the town largely lived in small houses, but many of these were pretty, simple cottages, showing refinement from their social porches and sur- roundings of flowers and shrubbery.

The city had a grand start from the charac- ter of its human stock. Indeed, I think the historian Bancroft somewhere has said, speak- ing of the entire Western Reserve, that the average grade of intelligence in its popula- tion exceeded that of any other equal era of people on the globe.

Euclid avenue, too, was acquiring a repu. tation for beauty. One residence upon it, that of Judge Thomas H. Kelly, Gen. Har- rison said was the handsomest in Ohio. It is yet a fine home-like domicile, but cannot compare with the palatial mansions now there.

But magnificent as these are, there is standing to-day upon this avenue one little cottage that, to my eye, is more attractive than them all, and because it had long been the home of the late Charles Whittlesey, the most learned of Ohio's historians ; the most original, philosophic and varied in his inves- tigations, alike in the realms of science and of events.

The Whittlesey home-place is about three miles from the centre, a white cottage, stand- ing a few rods back from the avenue, par- tially hid by evergreens. As I approached it on this tour to make a call upon my old friend, whom I had not seen in many years, I was surprised at the discovery at the path- side of what seemed to me an original sort of door-plate. It was a small white boul- der, dotted with red spots-jasper. The front side was polished, and on it was carved CHARLES WHITTLESEY. It was a block of breccia, conglomerated quartz and jasper, the natural home of which was the north shore of Lake Superior. Only four such have been found in Ohio, brought here in the ice age, though common in Michigan. This identical block was procured by Mr. Whittle- sey and shipped from the north shore of Lake Huron.

My visit was on a bright summer after- noon. I found "the Colonel," as everybody called him, not in his cottage, but in his garden, and the way I went thither was in- teresting-in at the front door and then out at the back door, through the little low rooms, filled with the books and utilities of the old student and scientist, life-long loves and companions, silent teachers of God, man and the universe.

In the garden, in the rear of a little old brown barn, old soldier-like, I found him, with his tent spread and in solitude. He was seated on a camp-stool at the tent door, the sun pouring full in his face, the afternoor

524

CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

sun of July 3, 1886. As I approached he did not at first hear my footsteps; he was gazing into vacancy, his mind evidently far away amid scenes of a long, eventful life ; at times, perhaps, on the far-away wilder- ness with savages, away back in the forties, surveying in the wintry snows of the Lake Superior country, or on the battle-field of Shiloh, or, perhaps, to his still earlier ex- periences when a boy, when this century was young, he was beginning life in a cabin among the struggling pioneers of Portage county.

Yes, gazing into vacancy from the tent door, a rather small, aged man, a blonde, and bald and evidently an invalid. He wore a dressing-gown, and, as I later saw, when he moved it was slowly, painfully, in bent atti- tude and leaning on a cane.

Around him strewed on the boarded tent were a few books, a map or two and relics of by-gone days ; the old military suit he wore in the Black Hawk war in 1832, when he was one of Uncle Sam's lieutenants of in- fantry, a stiff, black hat, bell-crowned, with a receptacle for a pompon, ancient sword with curving blade, an old-fashioned military coat with rear appendage of hanging flaps. He had saved it so long (for fifty-four years) that I fancied the moths must have owed him a grudge.

The Colonel had heard I was coming and sent word he wanted to see me. I got an honest greeting. There was no gush about him. He was one of the most plain, simple of men, a terse talker, giving out nuggets of facts-so terse that if perchance a listener let his mind go a wool gathering for a second and lost two or three words he would be clear broken up.

He told me that was the fourth summer in which he had passed several hours daily in his tent. This was to take sun baths, from which he thought then for the first time he was experiencing a decided benefit. Asking what was his special ailment he replied : "I have five chronic complaints, and all in full blast." When asked why soldiers did not take cold in tents he answered : "Because the temperature is always even. Indoors we cannot avoid uneven temperatures and in changing from tent life to house life one is apt to take cold."

No intelligent man could long listen to Mr. Whittlesey without feeling his intellect stimu- lated, and valuable facts were being ponred in for storage. His conversation, too, was enlivened by little flashes of grim humor, which he gave forth apparently unconscious, with a fixed, sedate expression. And if you then smiled he gave no answering smile, and you would be apt to think you had not heard him aright.

The learned man had helped me on my first edition ; had contributed an article on the geology of the State. The science was then new and the article is now obsolete. He wanted to help me on this edition, and wrote for it "The Pioneer Engineers of Ohio."

There is another article also in this book

by him, "Sources of Ohio's Strength," but of the great characters therein portrayed no one had greater breadth of knowledge, not one so varied knowledge, not one a finer in- tellect, not one was more worthy of the re- spect and veneration of the people of the commonwealth than Charles Whittlesey. And it is a singular gratification to me that be of all others of the many who contributed papers to my first edition should have contrib- uted to this edition. And he was the only one of them all who was living and could do so.

After this and another interview I saw him no more. His . work was finished. He passed away in the autumn, and the white boulder with blushing spots that adorned the front yard of the cottage is also gone and now rests over his burial spot in peaceful Woodlawn. With a sense of profound grati- tude I pen this tribute not only to one of Ohio's great men, but to one of the nation's great men.

Much gratification was derived this time in Cleveland by a call upon Mr. John A. Foote, an old lawyer, an octogenarian, of whom I had all my life heard but never met until now. He was a brother of Admiral Foote and son of that Governor Foote of Con- necticut who, when in the United States Senate, introduced a resolution, historically known as "Foote's resolution," which led to the famous debate between Daniel Webster and Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina.

Mr. Foote first came here from Cheshire, Connecticut, in the summer of 1833, and was for years a member of the eminent law firm of Andrews, Foote & Hoyt. He was born in 1803 on the site of the Tontine Hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, but his home at the time of leaving was in Cheshire. The town was overwhelmingly Democratic, and he was a Whig, but as the State Legislature was in session but for a few weeks his townsmen ir- respective of politics, "in town meeting duly assembled," gave him and a Mr. Edward A. Cornwall, prior to their departure for the dis- tant wilds of Ohio, as a parting compliment, the privilege of representing them in that body. So they went down to Hartford and passed a few weeks pleasantly among the " Shad Eaters," as, in the humorous parlance of the time, the members were called, from the fact that they met in May, the season of shad-catching in the Connect- icut.

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 82

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