History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 122

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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rector of the famous Lincoln club, and for a time served as secretary of the city executive committee. In his new office his business qualifications have rendered eminent public service in the transaction of its important affairs. It keeps the files of all the courts of the city and county, except the probate and police courts, and otherwise trans- acts the people's business in important relations. No less than twenty-three clerks are employed in its multifarious work.

Mr. Ramp was married June 18, 1868, to Miss Susie A., daughter of John T. Johnson, the well-known Cin- cinnati leaf tobacconist, and Ann Elizabeth Johnson. They have one child living-Ada Lillian, born November 9, 1870; and lost one in 1870-John Thomas, aged about eight months.

SAMUEL BAILEY, JR.,

sheriff of Hamilton county, is of North of Ireland stock on both sides. His great-grandfather on the father's side was a Scotchman. His father, a native of County Tyrone, was Samuel Bailey, sr., and his mother, whose maiden name was Mary Crossen, a native of County Derry, came over on the same ship, while yet unmarried, and their families not being with them. The young peo- ple, thus boldly facing the world alone, came to Cincin- nati in 1832, and were married here the same year. Mr. Bailey had received a superior education at home, in the schools and by his private efforts, and he soon found employment as a teacher in the schools of the county. His special talent for figuring served him an excellent purpose no great while afterwards, when undertaking large contracts in his regular business. He was a prac- tical stone-mason and bridge-builder, and, in association with Mr. Samuel Smiley, he became contractor for large amounts of stone-work and excavation in the city. Mr. Bailey, before he came to Cincinnati, sank one of the piers used at Erie, Pennsylvania. He lived the rest of his life in this city, a prosperous and successful citizen, and died here in 1865, in his sixtieth year. His wife had preceded him to the grave in 1853, while her family, for the most part, was still young. All of her numerous family, indeed, numbering twelve children, died in in- fancy, except the four who still survive-Daniel and Samuel, jr., both of Cincinnati, Kennedy B., of Cleve- land, and Mary, now Mrs. John C. Skinner, also of Cleveland.

Samuel was born in Cincinnati August 20, 1838, on New street, east of Broadway, only about four squares from his present office in the court-house. That whole part of the city might then have been well called "New," and there were many "magnificent distances" in which the young Baileys and their companions might play. He was educated in the public schools of that day, and is a graduate of the Woodward high school, from which he passed in June, 1858. He then took a position, in Feb- ruary, 1859, as check clerk on the Little Miami railroad at four hundred dollars per year. Here he remained until 1861, when he was employed by the railroad com- pany and the Cincinnati Transfer company, jointly, as

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shipping clerk on the levec. He had in this duty to see to the handling of vast quantities of valuable property, especially cotton, which was then being moved from the south in great amounts, and at one time commanded a price of five hundred dollars per bale. He never, it is said, lost a bale of cotton for the railroad. His labors at this time were exceedingly onerous. On one day he loaded three steamers with full cargoes, of war material, principally. For a week together, at times, he did not take off his clothes. In 1863 he acquired his first inter- est in the Transfer company, buying a small block of stock, and was shortly made assistant superintendent of the company at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. On the first of August, 1865, he was advanced to the superintendency of the company at two thousand dollars per annum-a position which he has since con- tinuously held, most of the time at an advanced salary. He is now one of the principal owners of the Transfer company, carrying nearly one-half of its entire stock of one hundred thousand dollars. February 1, 1875, he was chosen superintendent of the Cincinnati Omnibus company, in which he is also a stockholder, but resigned this position on the first of January, 1881, upon assum- ing the duties of sheriff.

Mr. Bailey entered politics through a channel some- what unwonted for those who have achieved success in partizanship. He felt that he owed much to the public schools of the city, and was not altogether sorry when, in 1878, he was nominated for member of the board of education and elected, although a Republican in a strong Democratic ward, and against a Democrat who was already on the board and had a party majority of nearly five hundred upon which to rely. At the expira- tion of his two-years' term, he was elected, under the new law providing for twelve members at large, a mem- ber for the longest term provided for-three years-re- ceiving the highest number of votes of any man on the ticket of twelve. This post upon the board he is still holding, with nearly two years yet to serve. During the second year of his first term he was chosen a delegate to the union board of high schools, and was made a trustee of his alma mater, the Woodward school. He served in this capacity two years, and then declined a re-election, from the pressure of other duties. He is also chairman of the board of local trustees of the sec- ond district school, on Sycamore street, which he at- tended in his boyhood. The same year of his second election to the school board (1880), he was a delegate, chosen from the county, to the Republican State conven- tion, which nominated General Garfield to the Presi- dency. He was an alternate in that great assembly, but on the final day of nomination, after eleven days of stormy struggle, his principal happencd to be ill, and Mr. Bailey had the supreme satisfaction of casting his ouly ballot in the convention for the nomination of the Men- tor hero. In the course of the canvass the choice of the Republican party of Hamilton county, in convention as- sembled, fell upon Mr. Bailey as its candidate for sheriff. He had a strong and popular German as an opponent, but after an exceedingly arduous and active canvass, in

which he bore full part, he shared in the magnificent suc- cess of the party at the fall election. He is now doing admirable and thorough-going duty in the position to which he was elected, and whose duties he assumed on the first of January, 1881. He was one of the founders of the Lincoln club, among the very first to sign the paper for the incorporation of that powerful organization, and is now one of its directors.

Among Mr. Bailey's special tastes is that for fine horses, which he probably inherits from his father, who was in his day one of the most expert horse-buyers in the city. He has never, since he was six years old, been without the ownership of a horse, and now has three steeds for his own use. This taste also serves the Trans- fer Company, whose operations Mr. Bailey superintends, in the purchase and care of its large stable of horses and mules. He and his family are extremely fond of out- door exercise on horseback and in the carriage. .

Mr. Bailey is of Protestant Irish blood, and a member of the Third Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, Rev. Dr. J. P. Kumler, pastor. He was married October 8, 1866, at Catlettsburgh, Kentucky, to Miss Virginia M. Hanzsche, daughter of a Bavarian printer and extensive land-owner, but herself a native of Baltimore. They have five children -- two girls and three boys-Virginia Mar- garet, Mary Emma, Charles Samuel, Fergus Miller and Dwight Kumler. They have also lost one boy, who died in infancy.

E. O. ESHELBY, EsQ.

Edwin Oscar Eshelby, comptroller of the city of Cin- cinnati, is of English stock on his father's side. His mother was born in Dublin, but her parents were also from England, though the family name, Drennan, seems to indicate Irish descent. The former, James Eshelby, was a native of Sunderland, in the North of England, born in 1807. The two came separately to America, sometime between 1836 and 1838, and met in Cincin- nati, where they were married about the year 1839. Mr. Eshelby was at first a shoemaker, and finally went into the manufacture of vegetable wines. He was a Govern- ment official in the late war, and after closing that ser- vice settled at Stevenson, Alabama, where he engaged in his former business, and died there in December, 1870. Mrs. Eshelby died in Cincinnati the same month, only three weeks before her husband. They left two surviving out of a family of nine children-Edwin, the subject of this sketch, and an older sister, Isabella l'rances, now Mrs. W. H. Hudson, of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati.

Edwin O. Eshelby was born in this city on the twenty- eighth day of May, 1851, the youngest child of Jamcs and Margaret (Drennan) Eshelby. He received his ele- mentary cducation in the public schools, and closed his formal training with the intermediate department. When the war of the Rebellion closed, and his father made his home and began business in the sunny South, young Eshelby, then but fourteen years old, could no longer brook the restraints of the schools, and was determincd

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to make an early beginning of active life. He was per- mitted to join his father at Stevenson, and in a year or two entered the telegraph office of the Nashville & Chat- tanooga railroad at that place, easily mastered the details of the business, soon became an expert telegrapher, and, within three months after his first efforts, was made night operator in the same office, at sixty dollars per month. He was subsequently, as he grew older, during about four years, otherwise in the employ of the railroad company as freight agent, express agent, telegrapher at various points, and for a time in the very responsible position of night train despatcher at Nashville. He was then scarcely more than eighteen years of age. He presently returned to his old home, and operated in the Western Union offices here and in Chicago. While here he attended two full courses of lectures in the Cincinnati law school, and took his diploma of bachelor of law from that insti- tution in the spring of 1875, and was then admitted as a full-fledged practitioner at the Hamilton county bar. He finds the knowledge and practice gained by his attend- ance upon the law school specially useful in his present responsible and difficult position.

Nearly a year before his admission to the bar, June I, 1874, Mr. Eshelby was united in marriage to Miss Fannie Jane, daughter of Mr. Jacob S. Lape, a well-known resi- dent of Cincinnati. For some years he had been an active worker among the young men of the Republican party in the county, but had not put himself conspicu- ously at the front, particularly in the demand for public office by way of reward for services rendered. He was one of the early members of the Lincoln club, founded in February, 1879, and was elected one of the directors. He was, however, never a candidate for office at the hands of the party until the second meeting of the Re- publican city convention, in the spring of 1880. He had no thought then of receiving a nomination, being engaged in profitable business with his father-in-law, in the firm of Lape & Brother. At the urgent solicitation of his friends, however-the prospects of the party, for special reasons, being then rather doubtful, and the nomination of a new man on the ticket for this important office, then newly created by the legislature, being deemed desirable -he consented to stand in the canvass, and, with no effort on his part, he was triumphantly nominated on the second ballot against three trained politicians and strong candidates, who had carefully worked ur their respective canvasses. Only four days thereafter ne wa's triumph- antly endorsed at the polls by the electors of the city, receiving, after his short but energetic campaign, a ma- jority of four thousand and sixty-two against the highest majority of any of his fellow-partisans of the ticket of but one thousand six hundred and four, and against an op- ponent, Mr. Silas W. Hoffman, who was a veteran and popular politician, and had long been an incumbent of the office of city auditor, to which Mr. Eshelby's present position corresponds. Within ten days he took charge of the comptroller's office, whose affairs were then con- siderably in public discussion and were in the utmost confusion, and at once set about making necessary re- forms. A complete system of checks and balances with

other departments of the city government was introduced, and a thorough-going, business-like system of book-keep- ing inaugurated, which has resulted in a reformation of the whole financial business of the city, so far as is re- lated to this office. The importance of this fact may be inferred from the simple statement that about six million dollars, the property of the city of Cincinnati, passes through his office every year. The burdened tax-payers of the Queen City may well be congratulated upon the marked change in the administration of affairs in this de- partment, than which there is none more important, or, indeed, as important, in the city government. Under what is known as the Worthington law, ordained by the legislature, the comptroller has the veto power upon all measures involving the expenditure of money from the municipal treasury; and it is fortunate that this power is now reposed in judicious and honest hands.

Mr. Eshelby has two children-May Amanda, born May 14, 1875; and Isabella Sarah, whose natal day is April 23, 1877. The family reside in the city, at No. 69 Laurel street, in the west end.

L. L. SADLER.

Lewis Lamont Sadler, president of the board of councilmen of the city of Cincinnati, is of Massachusetts stock. His father was Elijah Sadler; his mother's maiden name was Cordelia King. The elder Sadler removed to Butler county about 1832-3, and settled as a farmer in Oxford township, two and one-half miles northwest of the village of that name. Here he spent the rest of his days, and here he died in 1850. The mother long sur- vived him, and died in Oxford in February, 1881. At the old home the subject of this memoir was ushered into the world August 1, 1843, the sixth son and seventh child of a family numbering in all nine offspring. His boy- hood was passed upon the farm, assisting as he could in its toils, and attending for a few months a year the dis- trict schools of that neighborhood. At the age of fifteen he went to Richmond, Indiana, and began an apprentice- ship at the printer's trade in the " Broadaxe " office. He had previously, when a small boy at home, obtained some type, constructed a composing-stick of sugar-tree wood, a "case" of a trunk-tray and some cigar-boxes, and a "rule" of a spoon-handle, and with these made a hope- ful beginning in the "black art" of Faust and Gutenberg. His bent was decidedly toward the honorable profession of journalism, and he was going on prosperously as a learner, at the munificent salary of one dollar a week and board, when he was interrupted at once and forever by soreness and dimness of eyes, which forbade his proceeding fur- ther. He had been at the case less than a year, but could already do full journeyman's work. He returned, however, to the farm, where his widowed mother and an older brother were managing its concerns. Lewis assisted them for a time, and then, in 1860, when but seventeen years old, took a summer school in the very building where he had himself received his elementary education. He taught the young idea here for a school

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year of two terms, when he accepted a similar engage- ment south of Oxford village, where he swayed the ferule until July, 1862, when he enlisted as a private soldier in company C, Ninety-third regiment of Ohio volunteer infantry, Colonel Charles Anderson commanding. The regiment rendezvoused at Dayton, and in the summer moved to the field. Upon the full organization of his company, Mr. Sadler was appointed fourth sergeant, and while in camp at Nashville, before the battle of Stone River, he was promoted to the post of first or orderly ser- geant. In that action he was wounded in the shoulder on the first day, during the furious rebel onslaught which smashed the right of the Federal line, and was disabled for a time, part of which was spent in a hospital at Louisville. He rejoined his regiment at Murfreesboro, and participated in the marches and actions of the army of the Cumberland, passing unhurt through both days of the tremendous fighting at Chickamauga, during which but four men of his company got safely off the field besides himself. The command of the company often fell upon young Sadler, and he was recommended for a commission, which was issued, but withheld on account of the depletion of the regiment below the requisite number. He was again wounded in the battle of Mis- sion Ridge, during the magnificent charge up the height, and was never able to resume active service. The last of his soldiering was with the invalid corps, most of the time as sergeant-major in a detachment sta- tioned at Nashville, with which he served until the close of the war. He then returned to his mother's home, which was now in Oxford, and a few weeks there- after, in August, 1865, came to Cincinnati to take a course in a business college, also assisting to keep the books of Messrs. Fort, Havens & Co. He soon, however, devoted himself to their book-keeping exclusively, and left the commercial school altogether. With this firm he re- mained as an employee. About four years after, Mr. Havens went out of the concern, and Mr. Sadler was admitted to the new firm of Fort, Sadler & Co., in which he continued to keep the books and manage the finances until about two years ago. The firm-name, and its con- stituent members, remain the same to this day, in business at the Cincinnati stockyards as commission dealers in live stock and grain. The house has branches in Pitts- burgh and New York city, Mr. Sadler being for the last two years in sole charge of the present house at Cincinnati. In this business he has achieved eminent success. When he came to the city he had just enough money to pay his matriculation fee at the business college, and is now, after the lapse of less than sixteen years, possessed of a handsome fortune and an elegant home at No. 108 Everett street. In the spring of 1876 Mr. Sadler was chosen by the Republicans of the Fifteenth ward as a member of the city council, to which he has since been twice reelected. In his second year of service he was made chairman of the Finance committee, the most important one of the council. He was also twice elected vice-president of the board of councilmen. At the an- nual organization of that body in April, 1880, he was chosen by an exceedingly flattering vote to the presidency

of that honorable body, and reelected the succeeding year to the same position, in which he is now serving with acceptance.

Mr. Sadler was married June 28, 1871, to Miss Rebecca, daughter of Henry Beckman of Cincinnati. They have three children-Cordelia, Anna, Edna Lola, and Alvin Lewis Sadler. The oldest of these, a girl of only eight years, has already developed marked musical and elocu- tionary abilities, and is a favorite performer in the exhibitions given by the Odd Fellows and other organ- izations, as well as in the domestic circle and else- where. He is a member of Eagle lodge No. 100, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the Lincoln club, in which he is a stockholder, and of other sundry other societies.

JAMES G. STOWE.

This gentleman is descended from an old English family to which belonged Baron Stow, founder of the great Stow library (or library of the British museum), one of the greatest libraries of the world; also Sir John Stow, of Buckinghamshire, England, from whom Stow village, or parish of that shire, takes its name.

John Stow came from England in 1635, with four sons, settling in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and founded the fam- ily of Stowe in America. He was the son of John Stow, the chronicler and historian of London, a justly famous man, whose valuable works are copiously quoted by Eng- lish and American authors.

From Samuel, a son of John, Mr. Stowe traces his de- scent, through James H. Stowe, cousin of Dr. Calvin Stowe, husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mr. Stowe is a native of Providence, Rhode Island, born June 14, 1841, eldest son of James H. and Julia A. (Freebody) Stowe. His mother was also of an ancient English family of Newport, Rhode Island, in its earliest days, the de- scendants of which are scarcely found anywhere in the United States, and in Rhode Island away from Newport and Providence. Her parents were William and Sarah Freebody, of the Newport family.

Mr. Stowe remained in his native place until mature years. His primary education was received in the public schools of that city, and he was afterward graduated from the Mowry institute, also of Providence, when about eighteen years of age. He then became a mechanic and draughtsman under the instruction of his father, who was a practical mechanic, and in 1861 he became secretary of the Burnside Rifle company, which had its title from Ambrose E. Burnside, since the distinguished general and Senator, but then a prominent resident of Bristol, Rhode Island, and inventor of the Burnside breech- loading rifle, which the company was engaged in manu- facturing. Mr. Stowe was also engaged at this time (1861) as superintendent of the Burnside laboratory, a large establishment for the making of ammunition for the rifle. While thus employed he devised a machine for fill- ing cartridges, so efficient and swift as to fill one thou- sand cartridges in one-fourth of a minute. It has since come into use in all the United States arsenals. One of

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the original machines at use in the Burnside laboratory was sold to the Fenians and landed on the coast of Ire- land, where it was captured by the English Government, and is now in the British museum. During a part of this service he was appointed United States inspector of ammunition with rank, then an exceedingly important position. August 7, 1865, Mr. Stowe was elected treas- urer of the Perkins Sheet-iron company, likewise of Providence, engaged in manufacturing sheet and bar iron, of which William Sprague, late United States Senator, was president. At this same time he was secretary of the American Snow-plow company, in the same city. Until the fall of 1867 he filled these positions, and then upon the change of the Burnside Rifle company to the Rhode Island Locomotive works, with General A. E. Burnside as president, Mr. Stowe was recalled to his former associations as secretary of the works, and relinquished his other positions, the new position requir- ing all his time. In 1870 he was one of a committee appointed by eastern manufacturers to visit the States of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas, for the purpose of establishing manufactories. In January of the next year, as a consequence of this visit, and having on his hands a large machine shop which he had taken as an investment, he resigned his office in the locomotive works and removed the machinery of his shop to Bloom- ington, Illinois, in order to embark in independent busi- ness. Here the bonus of ten thousand dollars was given him by the citizens and a partner with suitable site and buildings. The same year he began the manufacture of a reaper of his own invention, and other agricultural im- plements, employing about fifty hands. His connection at Bloomington was somewhat unfortunate, and after sustaining large losses through his partnership, he with- drew from it, and accepted for a time the agency of the Superior Mower and Reaper company, with headquarters at Chicago. He presently withdrew from this, however, and in 1875 made a favorable engagement as manager of the Cincinnati branch office of C. Aultman & Co., of Canton, Ohio, manufacturers of reapers, mowers, engines, etc., the second largest manufactory of any kind in the State; the position which he now holds.

During his residence in Cincinnati Mr. Stowe has taken an active interest in politics, on behalf of the Re- publican party, and at the April election of 1879 he was elected councilman for the First ward, and was elected to his second term in the same ward April 12, 1881. He has been chairman of the committees on steam-railroads and light, and was elected vice-president of the council at its reorganization in April, 1881. He has been one of the most active and influential members of the board. During most of his business life Mr. Stowe has had a taste for journalism and authorship which, notwithstand- ing his many and engrossing employments, he has found time to satisfy. In 1867 a very valuable book of his preparation was published by Henry Carey Baird, of Philadelphia, who paid the young author handsomely for the copyright. It is entitled "A Manual for the Sheet, Bar, and Plate Iron Roller," and is in use in all the rolling-mills throughout the country. Another work

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 122

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