History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 116

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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Cincinnati at that day contained about two hundred houses, and these were located principally on three streets running north and south-Main, Sycamore, and Broadway, and the three running east and west-Front, Columbia and Lower Market streets. Fifth and Main streets were far up in the woods, and a brickyard was situated in the swamps not far south from where the Burnet House now stands. The population of the city did not exceed two thousand at that time. After Mr. Price had established his business he found it necessary to return to Baltimore for more goods. The entire jour- ney had to be performed on horseback, rendering the undertaking hazardous, and requiring good physical

health to endure and some grit to accomplish. His val- uable wife determined to share the hardship of this return journey with her sturdy companion, and both ac- cordingly set out on a bright October day to cross the mountains, leaving the house and goods in charge of their eldest daughter, Sarah, and Rees, their eldest son' now in the thirteenth year of his age.

The subject of our sketch, Rees Price, inherited many of the native endowments of his parents. He was well developed physically and mentally. With shapely limbs he walked with the energy and springing step of his father and possessed the suave manner, candor, and mental characteristics of his mother. He won many friends outside of those who were brought into contact with him in merely a business way. His father's success in busi- ness enabled him to make large purchases of lands west of Mill creek, but his long years of honest toil, that brought him such large results, were wasted in nanght in trying to help incompetent kinsmen and others, to such amounts in the use of his name as brought banbrupt- cey to his own fortunes. He attempted to retrieve his lost fortune, and began the second time, at an advanced age, to accomplish the result; but the task proved a struggle too great for the will-power of the man, and he died November 19, 1821, at the age of six- ty-four years.

Rees E. Price was twenty-seven years of age at the death of his father, and, owing to the want of educational advantages previous to the year 1808 and his father's embarrassments, he was called upon to aid him in extricating himself from his obligations. This labor, severe as it was, proved the only education of great prac- tical importance received. He was in every sense of the word a frontiersman in pioneer life; strong, active, and a hard-laboring man. He could go into the timber and in the sunlight of one day cut, split, and stack three cords of wood. With his keen-edged skinning axe he felled the forest and helped to make way for the school-houses, furnace-flues and factory-stack. With honest sweat and toil he manufactured millions of brick to be used in build- ing the beautiful mansions and business blocks of the Paris of America. He was truly an honest man, and a hard-working, faithful brother. A classical education might have developed other qualities of the mind had he spent his time in school and afterward followed some of the leading professions. But no course in life would have developed his usefulness, have made him a more valuable, respected and admired citizen, in all probability, than the honest, straightforward course he took and main- tained with his dying principles through life. In one sense he was truly educated, being a useful worker.

At the age of twenty-one he found his father's estate insolvent. He had a constitution by nature strong, and as yet unimpaired, and went to work with a will to cor- rect the misfortune. He possessed a good stock of correct principles, and, under the guidance and influence of his mother's love, fortune was made to smile upon his brave endeavors, and at the age of thirty-four he found himself free from all incumbrances. Of the leading traits which formed the character of our subject at that

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time we may mention his industry, honesty, will-power, and benevolence. These traits adhered to him through life. He was kind and considerate to the poor, ready and punctual to help those in need, while his word was his bond, and was so considered by his acquaintances. He was a man possessing prodigious strength. He at one time lifted a log with a man on it that a number of men had failed to lift without the man; at another time he shouldered a stone that a number of men singly had tried in vain to raise from the ground. He was a peace- able, silent, thoughful man. In his living he was tem- perate and frugal, a student of man and of nature, the results of which wrought out for him principles then re- garded by the slow age as odd notions and conceits, but now better accepted by the thinking mind as living facts. In politics he was an admirer of Jackson, the heroic will- power and patriotism of the man, completely winning his favor for the time being, but the governing policy of the old hero as it developed itself, though popular with the masses, found no sympathy or support from Mr. Price. He subsequently became an anti-slavery man, and voted for James G. Birney for President, since which time he has taken no part in politics.

The act of Congress which robbed Mexico of its terri- tory, to annex it to the United States in the interest of the dark spirit of slavery, was declared by him to be an ab- horrence and that the nation had dishonored itself in perpetrating such a wrong. His sense of justice was so much outraged at this flagrant act that he published his declaration to the world that he had no part in this dis- honesty of the Government, and that to such a Govern- ment he owed no allegiance. He visited Washington city, and in the Senate chamber in an almost frenzied condition denounced the unrighteous act in the presence of the men who had consummated it, and for the course he took, exhibiting an unreasonable contempt for the danger in which he was placed, was imprisoned by the authorities as a felon.

At the age of twenty-nine our subject was married to Miss Sarah Matson, daughter of Judge Matson, the dis- tinguished gentleman so well known in this county. After this marriage, in a dower conferred upon his daugh- ter, the unselfish character of the man was beautifully illustrated. To Sarah was given by her father eighty-two and a half acres of one of the most valuable farms in the Ohio valley, located but a few miles west of the city, on the banks of the river. The manly feelings of Mr. Price refused to have the farm conveyed to him or at any time to receive any profit therefrom, accepting it as law that there can be no legal title to land unless pur- chased by labor, and that he would eat no bread that was not won by honest toil, whether right or wrong. These were the axioms that governed him through life and illustrated his convictions at all times.

Mr. Price was a close student of Scriptural prophecies and gave them literal interpretation, politically and eccle- siastically. He held that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God by virtue of his loyalty to the divine attri- butes, and that Scripture prophecies indicate the modern advent of the grand man on earth who, with similar

loyalty to .divine principles, will be endowed with power like that ascribed to the meek and lowly one.

Bishop Morris, in the Christian Advocate of February 22, 1849, says that-

In his habits he is abstemious; drinks no tea, coffee, or anything but water; eats no animal food, but eats vegetables and fruits, except apples, which are the forbidden fruit, and are the raw material from which comes cider, which, in 1840, was used as the symbol of man-worship- one of the marks of the feast. He is fluent, often shrewd; has a sten- torian voice, and talks not by the hour only, but by the day and night. Still he is gentle, polite and good-natured; bears reproof with meek- ness and contradiction with patience, but never yields a point which is to him rendered certain by revelation; he believes the Bible, but inter- prets it by the spirit within him.

Although Mr. Price was a remarkable man, he was never in school after he was eleven years of age. He was married ninth December, 1824, after which he moved to the mouth of Mill creek, where John E. Price, his eldest son, was born and named after both grandpar- ents. Mr. Price died January 20, 1877, on the hill which bears his name.

Mr. John Price was born November 29, 1825, and after leaving school turned his attention to brick-making. In 1851, he accepted a position on the Ohio & Mississippi railroad as conductor, and is the oldest official in that business on that line. In 1845 he was one of the con- tractors for the construction of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton. The first train was run over that line tenth of April, 1854. In 1860, beginning in the month of October, he went south and was engaged on a road be- tween Sabine pass and Beaumont, Texas, but the break- ing out of the war stopped proceedings. The work now is being pushed forward by other parties. He was in the war three years as, from October, 1862, till October, 1865, superintendent of a division on the Nashville & Chattanooga railroad. He was also on other lines. In 1868 he began the construction of the Price's Hill in- clined plane, which he and his brother finally completed, including the elevator, in 1875, at a. cost of about two hundred thousand dollars. He was married May 11, 1875, to Miss Fannie Kugler, daughter of David Kugler, of Clermont county, Ohio. By this marriage Mr. Price is the father of two children. He resides on Price's Hill.

GENERAL DURBIN WARD.

This gentleman, one of the foremost at the Hamilton county bar, and an orator of unwonted eloquence and power, is a Kentuckian born, a native of Augusta, in Bracken county, where he first saw the light February II, 1819. He is of English and Welsh stock, his ancestors having settled on the eastern shore of Maryland about 1734. His father and grandfather were both soldiers in the War of 1812-15, the latter with the Maryland contingent, and the former with the Kentucky troops serving in the northwestern army. His father married Rebecca Patterson, daughter of an old soldier of the War of 1812. He received his given name from the dis- tinguished Methodist preacher of two generations ago, the Rev. John P. Durbin, who was a schoolmate of Mrs. Ward. When the lad was about four years of age his

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father removed to Fayette county, Indiana. . Here ,Dur- bin received a moderate primary education in the com- mon schools, and subsequently he spent two years in the Miami university, at Oxford, where he supported himself by his own exertions. He had, however, for many years been an omnivorous, insatiable reader, and up to the age of eighteen had actually perused every book that had come within his view. He thus left college with a vastly better equipment in intellectual resources and practical preparation for active life than many full graduates pos- sess. He determined to become a lawyer, and began to read the literature of the profession, at first with Judge Smith, then with the Hon. Thomas Corwin. Admitted to the bar in due time, he enjoyed the honors and emol- uments of a business partnership with Mr. Corwin for about three years. In 1845 he was elected prosecuting attorney for the county of Warren, and served in this office for six years. In 1852-3 he was a member of the house of representatives in the State legislature, the first held under the new constitution. He was an active and able member, and attracted considerable attention by an elaborate, strong report from his pen, conveying an argu- ment against capital punishment, and also an eloquent eulogy pronounced upon the occasion of the death of Governor Jeremiah Morrow, likewise by his effective op- position to the measure then proposed and advocated even by such influential members of the "third house" as Judge Bellamy Storer and William Corry, to lend the public arms of the State to Kossuth, then in this coun- try, for revolutionary purposes. For some years Mr. Ward was not much in politics, and in 1855 he finally abandoned the old Whig organization to which he had been long attached, but which was then almost in articulo mortis, and transferred his allegiance to the Democratic party, in whose faith he has since remained steadfast. In 1856 he was nominated by his new fellow-partisans as a candidate for Congress, but suffered defeat, with many other Democrats in the same canvass. In 1858 he was again upon the Democratic ticket, this time as a candi- date for the office of attorney general. He was also about this time prominently mentioned in connection with a candidacy for the supreme bench. He has since been a candidate in the hands of his friends for nomination to the governorship, and also to the United States Senate, and has from time to time been conspicuously named or formally nominated for other positions. He was a firm and useful adherent of Senator Douglas, of Illinois, then in training for the Presidential race, was often chairman of meetings of Douglas Democrats, and, in 1860, pub- lished a pamphlet in defence of the Douglas doctrine of popular sovereignty.

When the war of the Rebellion broke out he was prompt to enlist in the Union army, and, indeed, it is claimed that he was the first volunteer from his district, having begun to recruit a company even before the proc- lamation of President Lincoln calling for volunteers. He enlisted for the three months' service as a private in the Twelfth Ohio infantry, but was most of the time in service with the staff of General Schleich. At the end of his first enlistment he was appointed major of the

Seventeenth Ohio infantry, and took the field with it in southern Kentucky in October, 1861. He took promi- nent part in the battles at Mill Springs, Corinth, Perry- ville, Stone River, Hoover's Gap, Chickamauga, and other historic fields, and was seriously wounded in the last named fight, being shot through the body, and his left arm disabled for life. He went through the Atlanta campaign, however, with his arm in a sling, but received another injury to it about the close of the campaign, and was finally compelled to resign November 8, 1864. Upon his return he remained at Nashville, notwithstanding his release from service, while it was threatened by the ene- my under General Hood, and served as volunteer aid-de- camp on the staff of Major General Schofield. He had been made a lieutenant colonel in February, 1863, was promoted to colonel in November, of the same year, and breveted brigadier general November 18, 1865, "for gal- lant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Chicka- mauga." The writer of a book of Ohio biographies, in which General Ward's name has a conspicuous place, says that, "throughout his military career he was a bold, zeal- ous, fighting officer, having the full confidence of his men."

After the war he was for a time engaged at Washington in the prosecution of claims against the Government, but eventually came to Cincinnati and reentered law practice, in which he has since remained, with distinguished and lucrative success. While still at Washington he became a supporter of the policy of President Johnson, aided in organizing the Union club, of that city, and was a dele- gate to the National Union convention at Philadelphia aad the Soldiers' convention at Cleveland in the autumn of 1866. November 18th of that year he was appointed United States attorney for the southern district of Ohio, and, in 1870, against his expressed desire, he was nomi- nated and elected as one of the Warren and Butler county delegation to the State senate, where he again faithfully served his constituents. He has since held no public office, but his services as a campaign orator are still much in request by his party, in which capacity he renders most efficient service. He is an eloquent speaker in other departments of oratory. A volume of his mis- cellaneous addresses and orations is now in preparation, and will soon be before the public. A wide and perma- nent popularity may be safely predicted for it.

General Ward was married November 27, 1866, to Miss Elizabeth Probasco, sister of Judge John Pro- basco, formerly a partner of Governor Corwin. The union has so far proved childless.

HON. MANNING F. FORCE

The Hon. Manning Ferguson Force, one of the judges of the superior court of Cincinnati, is of Huguenot stock on his father's side, and Welsh in the maternal an- cestry. William Force, his grandfather, served in the continental army in the war of the Revolution. Peter Force, his father, was a native of New Jersey, but resided during most of his life in Washington city, where he died

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January 23, 1868. Here he became famous as an anti- quary and annalist, especially for the compilation of the invaluable work known as the American Archives, the nine volumes of which that were published constitute one of the great standard authorities for students and writers of American history. For the preparation of this he collected the finest series of "Americana" in the world, except that now existing in the British museum. The books and pamphlets in this department of his li- brary were purchased by the Government for the library of Congress shortly before his death.

Manning F. Force was born in Washington, December 17, 1824. He was prepared for appointment and admis- sion to the West Point Military academy at a boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia, but decided to enter Har- vard university instead. He was matriculated as a soph- omore, and graduated from this institution in 1845, but continued his attendance at Cambridge as a member of the University Law school, from which he took his di- ploma three years afterwards. The succeeding year, in January, 1849, he made the beginning of a career in the Queen City by entering the office of Messrs. Walker & Kebler, where he read law assiduously during another twelve-month. At the expiration of this time he was ad- mitted to the bar, and afterwards became a member of the firm, which now took the name and style of Walker, Kebler & Force. After the death of Judge Walker, Mr. Force remained in partnership with Mr. Kebler until the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion. Offering his ser- vices then to the Government, he was made lieutenant- colonel of the Twentieth regiment of Ohio infantry, in the three-years' service. He was with it in the battles of Fort Donelson and Pittsburgh Landing, and presently became its chief officer after the resignation of Colonel Charles Whittlesey, now of Cleveland, through ill health. He shared the perils of the advance on Corinth, the bat- tles of Iuka and the Hatchie, the desperate engagement of Leggett's command near Bolivar, and frequent recon- noissances, often accompanied with sharp skirmishing. During the march to Vicksburgh he was heavily engaged with his regiment at Raymond and the Champion Hills, at Port Gibson and Jackson. While the siege was pro- gressing, the Twentieth was sent up the Yazoo river with General Blair's expedition, and on its return Colonel Force was promoted to the command of the Second brigade, Third division, Seventeenth army corps, and de- tached with it, in June, 1863, as part of Sherman's army of observation upon the movements of Johnston's troops. When Sherman moved toward Jackson the brigade did guard duty along the road to Clinton. About this time Colonel Force was decorated with the gold medal of honor of the Seventeenth corps, by the award of a mili- tary board. In August he marched with General Ste- venson's expedition to Monroe, Louisiana, and there re- ceived his commission as brigadier-general. In October he participated in the demonstration on Canton, under General McPherson. November 15th he took command of the First brigade, in the same division and corps, and during the winter took charge of the outpost at the crossing of the Big Black river. In February, 1864, he

accompanied General Sherman to Meridian, and on the fourth advanced with the corps to the vicinity of Jack- son, skirmishing with the enemy for several miles, and his brigade rushing forward voluntarily and entering Jackson after nightfall. On the fourteenth his brigade was de- tached to burn a railway bridge over the Chunkey river, and during the movement surprised the rear guard of two brigades of rebel cavalry, under General Jackson, and routed them in utter disorder. His former regiment now took its veteran furlough, and he went with it home. The Seventeenth corps, with this and other veteran regi- ments, soon after reinforced the army of General Sher- man, then engaged in the campaign against Atlanta, and participated with it in subsequent engagements. The brigade commanded by General Force formed the ex- treme left of the Federal line at Kenesaw Mountain, and in one of the engagements there carried the enemy's in- trenchments at the foot of the height. Before Atlanta the brigade was swung to the right flank, and then to the left, where it captured a fortified hill in full view of the city, although bravely defended by a part of General Pat Cleburne's rebel division. The next day, July 22nd, oc- curred the terrific battle of the army of the Tennessee against nearly the whole of Hood's army, in which Gen- eral McPherson was slain and General Force was wound- ed by a shot which passed through the upper part of the face, and for the time entirely disabled him. He was supposed to be fatally hurt, and was sent home to Cin- cinnati, but recovered in time to report again for duty at Gaylesville, Alabama, while General Sherman was follow- ing Hood in his advance upon Nashville. Here he re- ceived the brevet of major general "for especial gallantry at Atlanta." He was in the famous march to the sea, and in that across the Carolinas he was in temporary com- mand of the Third division of his corps, and with it forced the crossing at Orangeburgh, South Carolina, from the rebels. At Goldsborough he was regularly assigned to the command of the First division. During all battles and marches General Force had kept his place, except during the retirement enforced by his severe wound at Atlanta, while his staff officers were frequently changed by the casualties of war, three of them being killed on the field, one mortally wounded, one made prisoner, and two sent, broken down by hard service, to the hospital. After the close of the war General Force was retained, in order to command a military district in Mississippi. After the performance of this duty he was mustered out in January, 1866. Returning home he was proffered eminent civil office by President Johnson, and also ten- dered an appointment as colonel of the Thirty-second infantry in the regular army, but declined both to reenter the pursuits of civil life. A writer in the Biographical Cyclopædia and Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Men says of his military career :

Of General Force's record as a soldier it may be said that he was at the front during the whole war of secession, that he lost neither a can- non, nor a caisson, nor a wagon, and his command, though always in the extreme front, was never taken by surprise, was never thrown into confusion, and never gave back under fire.

In the fall of 1867, having resumed the practice of his profession, General Force was elected by the Republican

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party, of which he had been a member from its begin- ning, to the bench of the common pleas, and was re- elected in 1871. In 1876 he received the Republican nomination for Congress, but took no part in the canvass on account of his judicial position ; and to this fact, probably, is due his defeat by his opponent, the Hon. Milton Sayler, but by a majority of only seven hundred, while Mr. Sayler's majorities had previously mounted into the thousands. The next spring Judge Force was advanced to the bench of the superior court of Cincin- nati, upon which he now occupies an honored place. He is also professor of equity and criminal law in the Cin- cinnati Law school, has been for many years president of the Ohio Historical and Philosophical society, which is virtually a Cincinnati institution; has been a director of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home at Dayton, a trustee of the Ohio Medical college, one of the founders of the musical festivals and the zoological garden, and a member of the Music Hall association and other organ- izations. He was united in marriage May 13, 1874, to Miss Frances Dabney Horton, of Pomeroy, Ohio. They have one child, a son.

HON. JOSEPH COX,

judge of the district court and court of common pleas of Hamilton county, and an eminent lawyer, is a native of Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, born August 4, 1822, son of Dr. Hiram and Margaret (Edwards) Cox. His paternal grandfather was a pioneer in western Virginia, and his maternal grandsire in western Pennsylvania. Both were soldiers of the Revolution and of the Indian wars that followed, and the latter was killed in an Indian fight near Wheeling about 1795; the other was killed by the premature falling of a tree, leaving a young family, among whom was Hiram Cox, father of the subject of this sketch. He was early apprenticed to a saddler, but had an aptitude for scholarship which made him a teacher at the early age of sixteen, and at twenty-one head of a flourishing academy at Chambersburgh, which he main- tained for ten years. He was united in marriage to Margaret Edwards during this period. Their second child was Joseph, who inherited not only a love of learn- ing, but great physical vigor, energy, and ability to sustain continuous and severe labor. In February, 1829, the elder Cox, having meanwhile studied medicine, removed his family to Cincinnati, and shortly after to Dayton, Ohio, and there practiced his profession for two years. He then returned to Cincinnati, took a course and grad- uated at the Ohio Medical college, practiced four years in Clermont county and then returned to Hamilton coun- ty, where he spent his remaining years, dying at a good old age in 1867. His son Joseph had already, upon arrival in the Miami valley, although but seven years old, advanced beyond the rudiments of learning in his father's school. His education was carried on in the schools of Clermont county, and in a singular but very efficient academy popularly called the "Quail-trap college," kept in a log cabin upon a farm near Goshen, by the Rev.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 116

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666