History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 134

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1592

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present > Part 134

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).

838

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

was present at the death of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who lived to the ripe old ages of one hundred and four and ninety-eight years, respectively. Our subject and family are active members of the Methodist Church, and he is a Republican in his political views.

CHARLES H. WITTE, junior member of the firm of Bennett & Witte, was born at Cincinnati, March 14, 1862, son of Charles and Mary (Borcherding) Witte, natives of Germany who came to Cincinnati in 1846. His father was a builder by trade, and died in 1882, at the age of fifty-four years. His family numbered seven chil- dren, six of whom are living; the two sons are E. R. C., secretary of the William Miller Range and Furnace Company, and Charles H. The last named graduated at Woodward High School, and attended the University of Cincinnati one year. He was bookkeeper for C. W. & S. G. Bond four years, and formed his present part- nership with Mr. Bennett in 1884. On September 1, 1887, he married Louise Vos- mer, daughter of August and Louise (Henke) Vosmer, natives of Germany, and now residents of Cincinnati, where Mr. Vosmer is president of the Central Furniture

Association. Mr. and Mrs. Witte are the parents of two children: Raymond Charles and Russell Bennett. They are members of the Second German Methodist Church, and in politics Mr. Witte is a Republican.

Cincinnati as a Carpet Market-One of America's Largest Distributors of Carpets and Floor Coverings. Near the center of the country's population, in the heart of one of the continent's richest valleys, and, relatively to her peerless tribu- tary mercantile territory, equipped, as the terminus of fifteen different railroad sys- tems, with magnificent railway connections and also with superb canal, river and steamboat facilities, Cincinnati, the "Queen City of the West," towers aloft among the metropolitan commercial cities of the country as one of the largest and foremost distributors of carpetings and all kindred floor coverings upon the American contin- ent. Her annual output in this line reaches far into the millions. Perhaps in no. one other branch of her commerce has she made such gigantic strides of progress in recent years, as in the province of a wholesale jobber of carpetry. Controlling, as. she does, through her immediate mill connections, a great part and in many in- stances the entire output of some of the best and most prominent carpet, rug and oil cloth mills of the country, and directly importing, through her foreign and eastern agencies, hundreds upon hundreds of Oriental carpets, and cargoes upon cargoes- of China and Japan straw mattings of every known brand, she proffers directly to the carpet merchants of the South, the West and the entire Southwest, at actual mill and import figures, anything and everything in the way of domestic and foreign wholesale carpeting in unexcelled cosmopolitan variety and assortment of makes, de- signs and qualities, from the humblest and most inexpensive to the most popular, the finest and the most costly. The duplicate stocks carried in her carpet ware- houses are something enormous. The carloads upon carloads of carpetings that come rolling into her marts from month to month, and particularly during the spring and fall, are one of the wonders of her railroad and transfer circles.

One house alone in this city is noted as the second largest handler in the world of the renowned Tapestry Brussels of the famed Alexander Smith Mills, the great- est Tapestry Brussels mill in the world. Well has the carpet merchant of the South and West come to appreciate that " Westward the star of Empire has taken its course " in the American carpet world, and in the light of the substantial advantages presented here at home. he no longer looks to the far distant East as his Mecca for values. The Western jobber has become the monarch of the field once usurped by the jobber of the East, and before his triumphant onward march some of the oldest and most famous carpet houses of Boston, New York and Philadelphia have been compelled to suspend or discontinue the wholesale business. In the battle royal that has waged between the West and the East, no city in this broad Union has taken a more conspicuous and honorable part than has Cincinnati; no city has contributed

839

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

more to the ultimate triumph of the Western jobber, and wherever this commercial conflict has been the hardest and longest, there, in the front of the fray, has been found the white plume of her progress. Guaranteeing actual mill prices that meet any and all competition, she offers to her carpet merchant visitor the closest figures obtainable; presenting, in her highly equipped and thoroughly metropolitan sampling room, stocks unsurpassed in magnitude and quality, she meets his every want; assur- ing to every southern and western point shorter hauls, prompt shipments and quicker deliveries, she saves him a clean gain of both time and freight; and above and beyond all, as one grand co-operative nearby warehouse for all her tributary territory, carrying the year round whatever the carpet merchant may at any time want, she offers him un- equalled opportunities for prompt, accurate and dependable duplicating, obviates his unnecessary heavy buying, and thereby economizes for him his capital, expense, in- surance and rent, the most vital elements of his business life. These paramount facts, these priceless advantages, the younger, the newer, the greater Cincinnati has brought clearly into the noon-day light of the western and southern carpet mer- chant's vision, and great has been her reward and practically unlimited is her field and her future as a wholesale carpet center. Wherever her steamers ply, wherever her locomotives speed, are found the representatives of her carpet interests. Fear- ing no rival and defying competition from any quarter, every day sees her becom- ing a stronger and a stronger factor in the American carpet world; sees her achiev- ing new conquests in the territory already hers, and sees her broadening, extending and unifying that territory. Wherever a carpet is made, bought or sold, the names of her wholesale carpet houses are known, and wherever they are known they are syn- onyms of aggressive progress and spotless integrity. Where a decade ago she stood an infant in the carpet world, she to-day stands a reigning sovereign, and one of the greatest and most highly capitalized industries of the country, the manufacture of carpets, looks to her and depends upon her as the certain dispenser of one of the largest shares of its product. Well may Cincinnati, and well she does, stand by in pride as her wholesale carpet interests say to the country, and in particular to every city, town and hamlet in the entire South, West and Southwest: "We stand by our goods, we stand by our prices, we stand by our character."

LOWRY & GOEBEL, Importers, Wholesale Jobbers and Retailers of Carpets: Founded July, 1881, at No. 118 W. Sixth street, Cincinnati, Ohio; founders, Will- iam Lowry (deceased), Justus Goebel; present firm, Justus Goebel, Robert J. Bonser, Arthur Goebel. So rapid has been the growth and rise of the firm whose name is our caption that it could not, if it would, forget the "day of small things," the day when it was but a stripling in the business world of Cincinnati, not to mention the entire country. Thirteen years ago, in one small store room and basement at No. 118 W. Sixth street, it opened its doors to the public and unfurled its banner to the mercantile air. Of its founders, the one, advanced in years, had seen service, acquired experience and achieved a reputation as a inerchant; the other, almost twenty years his junior, schooled in the school of necessity, and by nature endowed with the genius of unrest, was eager to work and to strive, and ambitious to rise. The elder admired the younger, and drew him unto himself; the younger looked up to and followed the elder as his exemplar as a merchant and a man. They linked their fortunes, joined their mites, and the house of Lowry & Goebel was born. From that day to this, the business code of the house has been "work," its policy has been "liberality," its history has been "progress," its reward has been "suc- cess."

Small indeed was its beginning, but its champions had in them the faith and courage of their cause. Before the opening day, advertising contracts were secured with seven leading English and German dailies, and an uninterrupted con- servative and judicious use of the Press has been an abiding characteristic. The initial stock consisted of seventy-nine rolls of ingrain, forty-three rolls of tapestries,

840

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

seventeen rolls of body Brussels, and a proportionately small aggregate of rugs, oil cloths, mattings and curtains. The original invoice book of this stock, the first ledger in the hand of Mr. Lowry, and the day book in that of Mr. Goebel, are to-day cherished as precious mementoes of earlier days. The first patron is still a patron and a warm friend, and the recurring seasons see his return and hear him say in pride that he bought the first carpet, a tapestry, this house sold, and that a better never was bought. Under the impetus of an indefatigable industry the busi- ness grew apace, stocks had to be increased, and more spacious quarters becanie a necessity. March, 1883, saw the removal to the present location, No. 167 Elm street. where three floors were taken and occupied. Though the firm were the first pioneers in a business sense upon this thoroughfare, its patrons followed it and brought with them their friends; and here, under the inspiration of the same charac- teristic tireless energy and ceaseless effort to please, fortune was kind and trade grew with an accelerated rapidity. In their implicit mutual confidence, in their common determination to succeed at the cost of every toil, vigilance and self-sacri- fice, both partners saw but brightness in the future, and but waited for the morrow, hand in hand, to court further success; but fate unfortunately had decreed other- wise, and in November of the same year (1883), Mr. Lowry, after a brief and apparently trifling illness, died, leaving to his younger copartner a business full of promise, but at once full of countless cares and grave responsibilities. All too soon had passed away the elder of these two more than partners-but withal not so soon but that he had left upon the younger the indelible impress of his sterling manhood. Unfavorable were the judgments of some in regard to the prospects of the house under the guidance of the remaining partner-but superficially had they observed and little did they know of the sterner stuff that within him lay. Smooth-faced and youthful looking at the early age of twenty-five, Justus Goebel, a stranger and unknown for the first time, stepped into the marts and inills of the American carpet world as a merchant to buy his stock. Mill owners and proprietors gray in the ser- vice placed their hand upon his shoulder, smiled, and told him he looked young. All were kind, some were more than kind. Such men as the elder Higgins, Walter Law, Joseph Wild, and William Judge, saw something more than usual in this young merchant aspirant; they admired him, they saw the grit in his clear gray eye, they took him by the hand, they encouraged him. Cognizant of the weight of the burden that rested upon him, he applied himself to his business with redoubled energy. By nature endowed with a hardy constitution, and a trained athlete in youth, he drew deeper than ever upon his physical endurance, and unswervingly devoted to the achievement of success every possible hour of the day and night and every available force of body and mind. Sole helmsman of his bark, he set every sail and breasted the storm, and bravely the bark sailed on into the haven of a greater and a swifter prosperity than could have been anticipated even in the bright- est moments of the most sanguine expectation. From season to season, from year to year, the business grew and multiplied, new features were added, new store rooms and warehouses, a wholesale cut carpet department, and a wholesale jobbing depart- ment, with its quota of travelers, until in July, 1889, Robert J. Bonser, who had already achieved the reputation of being Cincinnati's prince of successful salesmen, severed other mercantile associations, became the associate of Mr. Goebel, devoted himself to the general management of the house, and especially to the development of the wholesale department, and by the herculean work of himself and his corps of travelers upon the road brought the house into national repute as one of the country's foremost wholesale carpet houses.

Two years later, in July, 1891, the present youngest member of the firm, Arthur Goebel, who strikingly resembles his brother, became a copartner, and under his general supervision the retail department of the house, in particular, has enjoyed an unprecedented prosperity. With its final accession the firm seems in its union of

Engraved by J & Rice & S+ = Frilada

841

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

qualifications complete, and presents a personnel remarkably strong and difficult to duplicate. Though every man is yet young and far this side the prime of life, there is a combination of experience, vigor and intellect seldom found united in one estab- lishment-a union highly auspicious of a future as brilliant as has been the remark- ably brief but wondrously successful past. The house is to-day one of the greatest importers of China and Japan straw mattings in the West, handling many times more than all others in Cincinnati combined; it is one of the most extensive jobbers of oil cloths, linoleums, cocoa mattings, rugs and curtains west of New York; it is the second largest handler in the world of the celebrated Smith tapestry Brussels; and its ingrain carpet business, twice that of all other houses in this city combined, and representing controlling outputs of several of the country's best mills, consti- tutes one of the strongest ingrain accounts in America. Its freight account, which consists of nought but carpetry and drapery, is the second heaviest merchant freight account in the State of Ohio. It to-day occupies sixteen floors at Nos. 165, 167 and 169 Elm street, and six great floors at its Second street warehouses. Its sample rooms for the exhibition of wholesale carpetings are in the acme of perfection with which in a twinkling they show ranges upon ranges of goods, the equal of anything on the continent. Its travelers, numbering from twelve to fourteen, more than are traveled by any other house between Philadelphia and Chicago, and more than any two other Cincinnati carpet houses travel, penetrate every corner of Cincinnati's commercial territory, and, unexcelled in fabrics and invulnerable in price, they go beyond and are ready to meet competition from any point of the compass. Its agencies for the sale of carpetings by sample dot the map of the entire South and West, and reach a grand total of over two thousand. Its annual business exceeds a million and a half. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf to the Lakes, it is known as Cincinnati's representative carpet house. Its career is unparalleled in the annals of the American carpet world in the last quarter of a century.

WILLIAM LOWRY, deceased carpet merchant, Cincinnati, Ohio, former residence Covington, Ky., was born in Quincy, Ill., February 28, 1843, son of Joseph A. and Jane (Campbell) Lowry, natives of the North of Ireland. The parents came to America in 1836, were married in Philadelphia in 1838, and migrated at once to Adams county, Ill. The father was a farmer by occupation, and died in 1862; the mother died in 1881, leaving a family of eight children.

William Lowry received his education in the public schools of Quincy, Ill. Owing to the failure of his father's health, he was compelled to leave school at the age of fourteen, from which date he supported himself, and assisted in maintaining his mother and her family. At the age of fifteen he removed to Lexington, Ky., where he entered the carpet store of his maternal uncle, William Campbell. Here he rose rapidly to the position of salesman, and at the age of twenty-one took charge of a carpet store in Peoria, Ill. At the end of the first year, being offered a part- nership with his uncle, William Campbell, he returned to Lexington, Ky., and was in the carpet business there until 1870. While here he made his first trip East to purchase goods for their trade. He soon became recognized as one of the most expert buyers in the West, and as a man of superior business qualifications. His health failing. he went to the country and engaged in raising Shorthorn cattle, but returned to the carpet business in 1877, accepting a position with The John Shillito Company, where he remained until 1879, and where he first knew his future partner, Justus Goebel, as a stock boy. He then took charge of the carpet department at Alms & Doepke's. In the fall of 1880 he returned to the Shillito Company, and took charge of the wholesale carpet department. In July, 1881, with Justus Goebel, as above stated, he began the carpet business at No. 118 W. Sixth street. Their accommodations soon proving inadequate they in March, 1883, removed to No. 167 · Elm street, where, with his business, to which he gave his every power, upon the threshold of a magnificent career, he took sick and retired to his home in Covington

842

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

where, after a short illness, he passed away November 14, 1883, Cincinnati losing in his death one of her most enterprising business men, and the community deprived of one of its best citizens. In personal appearance Mr. Lowry was of medium height, having a rather heavily framed figure; of lofty expansive brow and dark hair; of well rounded mobile features, heavily bearded face, and dark sparkling eyes. Well-read, genial in temperament, calm and affable in address, giving the impression of much reserve force, he was the typical active merchant. He was married to Miss Margaret, daughter of William H. and Elizabeth (Leslie) McCabe, and to this union were born six children, four of whom are living: Margaret, married to George Beers, a professor of Yale Law School; Elizabeth, residing with her mother; Will- iam, who bears a strong likeness to his father, and is connected with the house of Lowry & Goebel, and John, a student. Mr. Lowry was a Presbyterian in religion, and in politics a Democrat.

JUSTUS GOEBEL, the present senior member of the firm of Lowry & Goebel, was born on a farm in Luzerne county, Penn., July 21, 1858. He is the second of four children born to William and Augusta Goebel, natives of Goettingen, Germany. In 1853 his parents came to the United States, and located in Pennsylvania. The father was a carpenter by occupation, and in 1866 migrated west, settling in Cov- ington, Ky., where he became connected with the Kentucky Central railroad shops. After about three years he embarked in the hotel business in Covington, continuing this line until his death, which occurred in October, 1877. He was a man of strong character and much practical benevolence, and his wide popularity redounded in after years in no small degree to the benefit of his children. The mother, a woman of most lovable and noble character, died in July, 1880. Their children were as fol- lows: William, residing in Covington, a prominent attorney with the most remu- nerative practice in northern Kentucky, one of the most conspicuous figures in her late Constitutional Convention, and the present State Senator from the Covington District; Justus; Minnie; and Arthur, junior member of the firm.

Our subject attended the public schools of Covington, and assisted in the hotel business until the death of his father. Subsequently he was employed by Cul- bertson & Company, of Covington, as a sawyer in one of their mills for one year and a half. Then, after undergoing many discouragements, he was offered the posi- tion of stock-keeper in the carpet department of The John Shillito Company, Cincin- nati, at a salary of four dollars a week. He accepted it; at the end of two months he was made a salesman, and his salary doubled. Here it was he first met William Lowry, and in January, 1879, following him, he-engaged with the Alms & Doepke Company, remaining with them about one year. Shortly after the death of his mother he entered the employ of T. M. Snowden & Company, East Fourth street, Cin - cinnati, as one of their salesmen. Next, in July, 1881, came the formation of the partnership with William Lowry, and the launching of their own small enterprise that was to become the great representative wholesale and retail carpet house of the present. The life, the work, the character of Justus Goebel, are found in the history of the house of Lowry & Goebel from that day to this. Its cares have been his toils, its progress has been his success. Mr. Goebel was married in Angust, 1886, to Miss Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Reynolds (deceased) and Elizabeth Reynolds, of Cincinnati. Mr. Reynolds was the proprietor of The Stone Lake Ice Company, one of the most extensive ice plants in Cincinnati. Mr. Goebel is at present a director in the company, and its president. Three children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Goebel: William Arthur, aged six years; Lillie, aged four years, and Justus, aged two years. In appearance Mr. Goebel is of medium stature and of wiry, athletic frame. Smooth-faced and with deep, keen gray eyes, he wears in repose the cast of thought and rugged strength, but in personal contact kindles into inviting smiles and genial affability. With the calm conservatism of responsi- bility, he yet appears in many ways even younger than he is. In 1890 he was a

843'

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI AND HAMILTON COUNTY.

director of the Mercantile Library, being at the time the youngest man ever elected to the office. The same year he became a Mason, has taken the thirty-second degree of that Order, and is a member of Willis Chapter and Trinity Commandery .. In religion he is a Methodist; politically he is liberally inclined.

ROBERT J. BONSER, of the firm of Lowry & Goebel, was born in London, Canada, March 5, 1863, the eldest of four children born to Edward E. and Sarah (Potter) Bonser. The mother, a daughter of Col. Robert Potter, of the English army, was. born in the West Indies, while her father was fulfilling his military duties there. The father of our subject came to the United States and in the spring of 1861 settled in Cincinnati, where he followed the vocation of painter and paper hanger. He remained here until 1872, when he established himself in the wall-paper business in Lafayette, Indiana, soon after becoming a member of the firm of Ward & Company, and upon the dissolution of this partnership, returned to Cincinnati in 1877; removed to Topeka, Kans., in 1884; to Tacoma, Wash., in 1888, and recently settled again in Cincinnati, where he at present resides.

Our subject received his education in the public schools of Cincinnati. In 1879 he entered the employ of C. R. Mabley as a salesman in the collar and cuff depart- ment, from which he was soon transferred to the men's wearing department, and then to the men's clothing department, where he remained nine years, and by his inherent merit and exceptionally effective work made himself its foremost salesman, and finally its manager. Already the remarkable qualifications with which nature. had endowed him had appeared in forcible manifestation. He was a born salesman, and peerless and unrivalled, he was acknowledged to be the prime minister of the. salesman's art in the mercantile world of Cincinnati. Wherever the abilities of salesmanship were appreciated, he was known and sought after. On July 6, 1889, he permanently associated himself with Mr. Justus Goebel, and purchased a part- nership interest in the wholesale and retail carpet business of Lowry & Goebel. Though he had never handled a carpet, and though he had but a fortnight to edu- cate himself in the mysteries of his newly-chosen vocation, his genius did not for- sake him, and he donned his armor, took the road the same month, and achieved

instant success. From that day he has been a gladiator in the active field. The marvellous progress the house has made is in no small measure due to the force of his character and the might of his work. Powerful in frame, leonine in appear- ance, magnetic in presence, and with piercing dark eyes, he is to-day the acknowl- edged monarch of American carpet road men. Mr. Bonser was married March 5, 1884, to Miss Ella, daughter of Philip and Mary Metzger, of Cincinnati, and to this union have been born two children; Horace, aged seven, and Isabella, aged five years. He has been a member of the Knights of Pythias eight years, became a Mason in 1890, has taken the thirty-second degree of that Order, and belongs to the Willis Chapter and Trinity Commandery. In religion he is a Presbyterian, in poli- tics a Republican.

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.

History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 134

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1592

Author: Nelson, S.B., Cincinnati
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Cincinnati : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1592