History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 123

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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of his on guns and gunnery had a large sale in this country and England. While at Bloomington he wrote much for the Pantagraph of that city, and for the Chi- cago Tribune and eastern papers. Since his removal to Cincinnati a specially useful book of "Hints to Farmers on the Reaper and Mower" has been published. Mr. Stowe at times appears as a lecturer, having pronounced before various bodies in this country addresses on Physi- ognomy and Odd-Fellowship. Industrial art in this coun- try owes not a little to the inventive genius of Mr. Stowe. He has patented, first and last, no less than thirty ma- chines and improvements, the principal of which are the cartridge machine and the reaper before mentioned. It is truly wonderful that he has been able to accomplish so much for his years in the various departments of human activity.

J. B. CHICKERING,

founder and proprietor of the Chickering Scientific and Classical Institute, was born August 10, 1827, in the town of New Ipswich, New Hampshire. His grandfather, Captain Abner Chickering, served in the Revolutionary war, and his father . was a captain in the War of 1812. His father was the only brother of Joseph Chickering, the celebrated piano manufacturer. The subject of our sketch spent the first years of his life on a New England farm, where he was trained to habits of hardihood and economy. At the early age of eight years he lost his father. From the age of eight to the age of sixteen he worked on a farm earning his own livelihood and assist- ing in the support of his mother. He found time for study, and manifested great quickness of apprehension, with remarkable power of memory. When sixteen years old it was thought best that the boy should shift for him- self, and, Yankee-like, he started out eagerly to try his fortune. The cash capital with which he began life on his own account, was but forty-two cents. Impressed with the excellent Yankee notion that education is the prime essential to success in any business or profession, young Chickering determined to go to school awhile, at all hazards. He made arrangements by which he could barter honest work for solid knowledge, and in 1843 en- tered Appleton institute, a most excellent classical and sci- entific school, located in his native town. For six years he worked and studied on a average of eighteen hours a day, and at the end of that time graduated at the head of his class. The continuity of his course at the acade- my was broken by the necessity of increasing his earn- ings, and he found winter employment in teaching dis- trict and high schools. His active habits and ready skill in imparting instruction made him very popular as a teacher. For two or three years after graduating Mr. Chickering continued a post-graduate course of study, giving most of his time to reading Latin authors; but circumstances prevented his completing a full collegiate course, as had been his long-cherished plan. Subse- quently he found time to give three years to the study of the French and German languages, but he took a greater interest in and gained greater proficiency in mathematics

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

and natural sciences, for which he possessed a peculiar aptness. The cast of his mind is peculiarly practical and methodical. He readily seizes the general features of a subject, and is rarely mistaken in his judgment as to the relative value of studies to individuals, or as to the real breadth or capacity of others, whether they be teachers, learners, or neither. The term "shrewdness" well describes the character of his mind. Education has in every way sharpened and strengthened his faculties, but the executive genius by which he has won so good a reputation and accomplished so useful a work, is inborn, like his common sense and gay, good humor. The fol- lowing is clipped from the Cincinnati Gazette of Septem- ber 17, 1877:

It is thirty-three years since the principal of the well-known Chicker- ing institute first commenced his career as a teacher in the grammar schools of New England. Here he taught with inarked success in grammar and high schools for eight years, when he was induced to come to Cincinnati on account of a generous offer made him by Miles Greenwood. This was in the autumn of 1852. After eighteen months spent as a private tutor, Mr. Chickering opened a private school in the beautiful village of Avondale. Inducements being offered for him to come to the city, he determined to do so, and in 1855 Chickering acad- emy was opened in George-street-engine-house, with an attendance the first week of thirty-seven, and during the year inereased to fifty-one. The second year the school record showed an attendance of seventy- six. Each successive year the attendance continued to increase until the year 1859, when it was determined to build for the better accommo- dation of the pupils. The site of the present building was purchased by Mr. Chickering, a two-story building was erected, and Chickering academy changed its name to the Chickering Classical and Scientific institute. The first year in the new building the school numbered one hundred and fifty-five. Within two years it was found necessary to add another story to the building for the better accommodation of the primary department for young boys. From that time to the present has been a series of years of most remarkable success in the school's history, the average attendance catalogued being two hundred and fif- teen per annum. During all these years it has enjoyed the reputation of being not only one of the largest (probably the very largest) private schools for boys in the country, but is certainly one of the best man- aged and conducted in every respect.

This school may well challenge comparison in the almost invariable success of its many graduates to pass the required examination of the colleges and scientific schools of this country and of Europe. Since 1864 the institute has presented the graduates of both classical and scientific departments with diplomas. No one is graduat- ed unless he has an average standing of seventy-five per cent. during the middle and junior years, and of eighty per cent. in senior year. This rule is rigidly adhered to. This demands of students most earnest and faithful study and work in all departments, and hence the reason why those who enter colleges and scientific schools from this institute have always succeeded without being dropped from their college classes. At present the school has a most able corps of fourteen teachers, selected with special reference to their fitness to fill the places assigned them in the school. None but experienced teachers are ever employed. The liberality and discriminating judg- ment of Mr. Chickering have been the means of induc- ing several eminent educators to cast their lot for a longer or a shorter period of time in the institute. Among these may be named G. K. Bartholomew, principal of the young ladies' school bearing his name, Professor Henry

P. Wright, of Yale college, Professor Tracy Peck, of Cornell university, Professor E. C. Coy, of Phillips' Andover academy, W. H. Venable, author of United States History and several other works. Mr. Venable has been associated with the institution for seventeen years and has contributed very largely to its present emi- nent success.

Any sketch of the life of Mr. Chickering would be incomplete if it did not allude to his character as a citizen and a Christian worker. He is known in the city of Cincinnati as a most scrupulously honest and prompt man of business, and as such has the respect and confidence of the business men. His industry knows no rest. He never delegates even the details of his work to agents, but attends with the utmost care to every item of his own business. Mr. Chickering is a vigilant and indefatigable working church member. Perhaps no man living ever gave more faithful service to Sabbath-school interests than he has done. He is never absent from his post of duty, and his punctuality is proverbial. During thirty-three years he has never been once late at the opening exercises of his school, nor absent therefrom a single day. Blest with an unusual degree of health, his energy knows no rest. Although so exacting of his own time and energies, he is nevertheless generous toward those who do not attain his own standing of promptness and punctuality.

On the fifteenth of July, 1857, Mr. Chickering was married to Sarah M. Brown, of Harvard, Massachusetts. Since then their pleasant home has been blessed with five children, the eldest a daughter, and four sons, all of whom are living. In closing our sketch it may not be uninteresting to state that the Chickering family is of the old English stock, and the lineage can be traced in an unbroken line to 1138. His mother, whose maiden name was Boutelle, was of French descent .*

PROFESSOR GEORGE W. HARPER.

Professor George W. Harper, for many years principal of the Woodward high school, in Cincinnati, was born in Franklin, Warren county, Ohio, August 21, 1832. He is son of the Rev. Daniel Harper and Sarah (Sims) Harper, both of old Quaker stock, residing originally near Philadelphia, but emigrating thence and settling in Warren county in 1825. They removed to Cincinnati in 1843, where the elder Harper engaged in the grocery and commission business, at first on Ninth street, and afterwards at No. 12 East Columbia (Second) street, where the business is still carried on under the firm name of Harper & Winall.

George received the rudiments of education in the country schools of his native place, and was not intro- duced to the graded system until he was fifteen years

* The above is a production first written by W. H. Venable for the Biographical Cyclopedia of Ohio.

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old. From his eleventh to his fifteenth year, after the removal to the city, he assisted his father in his business, and considers the practical training then received an in- valuable part of his preparation for active life. He was then for two years a member of the Tenth district in- termediate school, taught then, among others, by the lamented Aaron P. Rickoff and the Hon. Alexander Ferguson, the latter now an eminent lawyer and railway man. He then entered the old Central high school, the first of the grade in the city, and after two years more in that institution entered Woodward college, in which he took the usual collegiate course, giving especial atten- tion to the mathematics, under the teaching of the late Dr. Joseph Ray, then head of the school. Upon gradu- ation (taking the valedictory honor) in 1853, he read a partial course in law; but, through the personal efforts and solicitation of Dr. Ray, he became a teacher instead of a lawyer. He seemed, indeed, to be born to the former vocation. While yet a student he was placed in charge of a room from which two teachers had retired dis- comfited and discouraged, and managed it with great success to the end of the school year. Taking a certifi- cate of qualification in order to entitle him to pay for services rendered, and subsequently receiving, without the least solicitation on his part, an appointment as third assistant in the Woodward high school, he was easily in- duced to see that the path of duty and probable success lay for him in the pedagogic profession. He had rapid promotion, in a few years became first assistant in the school, and in 1866 principal, which position he has since retained, with distinguished honor and success. By 1869 his devoted service had abundantly earned him the leave of absence which was granted him by the board of education, and for about four months he enjoyed the advantages of a tour in Europe, during which he made special inquiry into the school systems of Great Britain and the continent, from Scotland to southern Italy, and as far eastward as Vienna. The observations then made have been of service to him since, not only in his regular work, but in the papers he has read and the discussions in which he has engaged in the teacher' institutes and associations he often attends. He is an active member of the State Teachers' association.

In 1873 the trustees of the McMicken fund resolved to try the experiment of organizing a university. The effort was entrusted to Mr. Harper, aided by his principal male teachers. The hours from 2 to 5 P. M. in the Wood- ward building were fixed, and Mr. Harper and five other teachers were selected to organize and run the school for one year, and if it proved successful the trustees de- termined to enter upon a permanent organization. After examining one hundred and eighty-six applicants fifty- six were admitted and organized into classes in Latin, Greek, German, French, higher mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The experiment proved successful, and at the close of the year a permanent organization was effected, under the name of the Cincinnati university.

Professor Harper has frequently delivered with much acceptance his scholarly course of lectures on geology, in the preparation of which he has been aided by his

fine collection of fossils from the Silurian and other for- mations. He has made no less than five extended trips through the South, gathering for his cabinet of fresh - water and land shells, of which he published a useful check-list some years ago. He is prominent member of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, one of its board of council, and one of the editors of its Fournal. In 1855 he began a series of meteorological observa- tions in this region, under the direction of the Smithson- ian institution, which have been continued for twenty six years. These have supplied invaluable data (from the rain records) for the establishment of the sewerage sys- tem of this city and other important purposes, and in some cases heavy lawsuits against the city for damages have been decided by the aid of these records.

In 1865 Professor Harper was elected a trustee of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery; was elected president of the college in 1868, and again in 1875, and still holds that position. In this service he has been use- ful in many ways, but perhaps in none more so than in the capacity of peacemaker. So highly have his services been esteemed by the authorities of that institution that, some years ago, they surprised him by the presentation of a handsome gold watch and massive chain, bearing the inscription: "Presented to George W. Harper, March 20, 1873, by the Faculty of the Cincinnati Col- lege of Medicine and Surgery."

In 1861 Professor Harper had conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, by Denison uni- versity.

Mr. Harper became a member of the Trinity Method- ist Episcopal church in this city in 1847, at the age of fifteen, and was a most efficient and useful member un- til 1860, when he removed his membership to the As- bury church, where he has since been a most active worker. Two years after his admission to Trinity, he became a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and in 1869 he was elected superintendent of the school. Six years be- fore this, when scarcely yet of age, he was made an official member, and has since served steadily in that relation.

July 8, 1858, Mr. Harper was united in marriage to Miss Charity Ann, daughter of Frederick and Eveline (Dial) Durrell. She is also a native of Franklin, in Warren county, but was brought to this city when an infant. They have had two sons and three daughters born to them, of whom the sons and one daughter still survive. The oldest son, E. Ambler Harper, after grad- uating from the Woodward high school, entered the Cin- cinnati university, where he has just completed his third year.

CAPTAIN C. A. SANTMYER.

Charles Augustus Santmyer, United States appraiser for the port of Cincinnati, had his nativity in Baltimore county, Maryland, upon a spot then about three miles

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from the city, but now probably within its limits. His father, John M. Santmyer, was a native of Alsace, then a French province, and at the age of thirteen came with an uncle to this country, and settled in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. He there grew to manhood, and during the last war with Great Britain was a marine in the ser- vice of the United States. He was with Decatur on the Constitution ("Old Ironsides") during the celebrated sea-fight with the Guerriere, of which, as well as of the Constitution itself, Captain Santmyer has a number of interesting relics. He also served in the land forces with the Pennsylvania contingent, was at the battle of Bla- densburgh, just before the storming of Fort McHenry, and was wounded at the subsequent action of North Point, from which he suffered slight deformity through the rest of his life. After his discharge, which was com- pelled by this wound, he settled in Maryland, and was married to Miss Mary, daughter of John Elder, one of the eldest of the English Methodists in Maryland, and founder of the town of Eldersburgh, in Carroll county, of that State.

After his marriage, the elder Santmyer located for a short time at Antioch, Maryland, but finally settled in Baltimore county, where the subject of this sketch was born. He there began the manufacture of the old-fash- oned beaver fur hats, which he continued for twenty-five or thirty years, when he retired from this business, and sometime afterwards became interested in the editorial and business management of the Catholic Mirror, a prom- inent organ of the church, published in Baltimore by John Murphy & Co. He removed his family into the city, and took a residence on Pine street. The remain- der of his years was spent there and in religious journal- ism until his death, very suddenly, of chronic dysentery, in 1853, aged sixty-three. The mother died twenty years afterwards, in the same city, aged seventy-three. They left a family of seven children, five brothers and two sisters. The youngest son and child was Charles Augustus, born April 24, 1839, upon the old place in the suburbs. He began attendance at a private school, taught excellently by a Miss Locke, when about six years old, and was afterwards in the pre- paratory departments of Calvert and St. Mary's colleges, in the city, and finally at Mt. St. Mary's, Emmettsburgh, which he left before completing his course, in order to enter the regular army. This was during the Crimean war, some years before the war of the Rebellion. He had previously been a member of a military school at Govanstown, Maryland, though for but a short time; and the reading of Cooper's novels, with their stirring stories of Indian and border warfare, had aided to give him a decided military bent. He was then but eighteen years old, but was nevertheless accepted as a recruit, and as- signed to the famous Washington battery (B), in the Fourth United States artillery, which made such a con- spicuous figure in the Mexican war, and is noted in the service as the battery longest mounted in the regular army. In this war, by the way, Captain Santmyer had a brother, Joseph P., who was a captain in the Maryland regiment led by the dashing Colonel May, who fell in a

charge at Resaca de la Palma. He was also in the late war, a captain in the Seventh Ohio cavalry. Young Sant- myer was sent from Philadelphia, where he enlisted, to Fort Columbus, in New York Harbor, and then to join the Utah expedition, sent out under the late rebel Gen- eral Albert Sydney Johnston. He endured safely all the miseries of this most toilsome march. After the peace, the battery was kept in the neighborhood of Salt Lake and on the plains, engaging in several severe Indian fights, the hardest of which was on the eleventh of August, 1860, in which a party of twenty-seven, of which Sergeant Santmyer was one, fought for several hours a band of the Goshen Utes, numbering about nine hun- dred, finally beat them off, and, after other battles with small forces of the Federal soldiers, they were compelled to surrender. The next spring the battery was ordered to sell or destroy- large quantities of ammunition and other property which could not be removed (its means of transportation having been sold the fall before, by order of the notorious traitor Floyd, then Secretary of War, in order to cripple it as much as possible), and to move to " the States." A forced march was made across the plains, without the weekly halt for "wash-days," then customary in the movements of troops there. Reaching steamer facilities at Fort Leavenworth, and then railroads, the battery was transported more rapidly to Washington, and was at once placed in position on Munson's Hill. Sergeant Santmyer, then the orderly sergeant and strongly recommended for a lieutenancy, remained with the command till his enlistment expired, July 7, 1862, when he returned to Baltimore, and organized and drilled battery B, of the Maryland volunteer artillery, which was mustered into the Federal service in Septem- ber of the same year. He then joined the First Maryland cavalry as first lieutenant of company M, and was with it during Siegel's, Stahl's, and Sheridan's campaigns in the valley of the Shenandoah, then in the subsequent opera- tions of the Army of the Potomac, including the battle of Gettysburg, in which he was wounded, as also at Snicker's Gap and at Berryville, but neither of the wounds put him out of the fight for more than a few weeks. He received no permanent harm from the casu- alties of war, except a serious rupture in the right side, caused by the fall of a horse upon him at Snicker's Gap. He was adjutant of the regiment for some time, and in August, 1864, received his well-earned promotion to the captaincy of his old company. He accompanied the regiment thenceforth through all its arduous marches, innumerable skirmishes and pitched battles, until the close of the war, and for some months afterwards, when it was finally mustered out at Baltimore, December 13, 1865.

Soon after the war Captain Santmyer followed his brother Joseph, who had settled in Cincinnati, and after nearly a year's rest and medical treatment for relief from the consequences of his long and hard service, he obtained a place in the custom house, as storekeeper during the collectorship of General George W. Neff. He has since remained continuously in the custom service here, being steadily promoted from place to place,

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until July 26, 1876, when he was appointed to the re- sponsible and difficult office he now holds, by commis- sion of President Grant. Much of his previous experi- ence had gone far to qualify him for this post, and he has discharged its delicate and laborious duties during now more than five years, with entire acceptance. It may naturally be supposed that he takes a hearty interest in politics, and has done what he could, in many ways, to promote the success of the Republican party. He is a very active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and has been mainly influential in building up the ad- mirable post of the Grand Army which is maintained at his home in Carthage. His affiliations in organized so- cieties are exclusively with this organization, through which he has incidentally been enabled to do much good work in reforming old soldiers that were going to the bad.

Captain Santmyer was married December 10, 1868, to Miss Helen M. Wright, granddaughter of the vener- able Dr. Thomas Wright, of Ingleside, Sycamore town- ship, where they were married, and daughter of Noah D. and Maria Louise Wright. Their children number four: Joseph, now eleven years of age; Jessie, a centennial child, now in her fifth year; Helen, nearly four years old; and Louise, born December 27, 1879. The family re- mained for some years at Ingleside, but in April, 1881, removed to the pleasant residence they now occupy on Front street, in Carthage.

HON. GEORGE W. SKAATS.

James, the grandfather of Mr. Skaats, was an immi- grant from Holland, settling among the Knickerbockers on the Hudson river about the middle of the last century, coming with his father's family to America while still very young. He was a lieutenant in the Revolution, and served honorably until the close of the patriotic struggle. He survived until 1843, dying in that year at the age of eighty-eight, in Dearborn county, Indiana, and was buried with military honors. He had come with his family to that county in 1817. James, his son, was one of the party, and resided with his people in Dearborn county, where they engaged in the business of farming. James took a farm for himself on Tanner's creek, seven miles from Lawrenceburgh. In 1823 he removed to Cincinnati, and opened a grocery store on Central avenue, on the northeast corner of Longworth street. After two or three years in this location, he pur- chased another, an entire acre, at the foot of Fifth street, where he built a store building. The wharf subsequently built at this point, about three hundred feet in length, is still in the possession of the family, and is leased to the city. At that time a horse ferry was run from this land- ing to the Kentucky shore. Here Mr. Skaats was quite out of the city, for the time being; but he had a large trade, especially with the Kentuckians, whose custom he was very favorably situated to attract. For the rest of his life, so long as he did any business, he remained here, in the same trade. In 1860 he died, at his home

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 123

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