History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 78

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

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John D. Jones was one of the elder children in this family, and while quite young, prompted by ambition as well as necessity, left home, full of energy and life, to learn the mercantile business. With that object in view he proceeded to Phila- delphia, and was there employed by his maternal uncles, Thomas and John K. Gra- ham. In September, 1819, with his older brother, George W. Jones, he came to Cincinnati, crossing the Alleghany Mountains in the well-known Conestoga wagons -of whose size and character perhaps only the oldest inhabitants have a correct appreciation-and came down the Ohio river in a flatboat, bringing a stock of dry goods as well as some other necessary parts of an outfit to start a western store, and established the firm of George W. Jones & Company. Thus they made their first essay as merchants in a field of labor which was at that time confined to a small and circumscribed territory of trade, but has since become expanded until it has assumed almost illimitable dimensions through the assistance of all the conveniences and advantages which the science, skill and industry of man have created. On Decem- ber 1, 1820, at the early age of twenty-four years, his brother and partner died, leaving the care and responsibility of a new business, in an undeveloped and almost unsettled country, upon one as yet untried and inexperienced. Notwithstanding this sad blow, received when his plans of promise and life had scarcely been formed, together with his uncle, Thomas Graham, he continued the business under the firm name of John D. Jones & Company, till its dissolution in 1827. Nothing seems to have specially marked this period of his life in the prosecution of his mercantile pursuits, except the steady and constant increase and prosperity of the business.

On September 22, 1823, at Piqua, Miami Co., Ohio, Mr. Jones married Eliza- beth Johnston, daughter of the late Col. John Johnston. She was born September 22, 1807, at the Military Post from which the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, derived its name, at the time her father, so well and favorably known as one of our western pioneers, was United States factor and Indian agent. In this connection it may not

Engraved by J R Rice & Sons. Philada.

AC Collins

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be improper to mention something of this venerable gentleman, whose personal appearance was familiar, down to within a few years past, to a large number of our citizens, especially to the members of the " Pioneer Association," of which he was the president. He was born in Donegal, Ireland, March 17, 1775; came to Cincin- nati, or, rather, Fort Washington, February 7, 1793; was previously a clerk in the War office, at Philadelphia, under Gen. Dearborn; and for forty years was in the service of the United States as Indian agent, factor, or in some other fiduciary posi- tion, and as such being associated in the control of our governmental affairs in the West, for many years with Gen. Harrison and Cass, with whom he always main- tained the most intimate and friendly relationship. He died in the winter of 1860-61, in Washington City, at the age of eighty-six years, during the session of the Peace Commissioners appointed by the government to avert the impending rebellion which well-nigh destroyed our country. Col. Johnston was a stanch Federalist and Whig in politics, and several times attended, as a delegate, the gen- eral political conventions of his party. In the later days of his life he often expressed his prediction of our Civil war, a prophecy which was too well realized, not in his day, however, the lamp of life having been extinguished but a few months before liostilities were commenced. But to return from this diversion. In 1827 Mr. Jones and his younger brother, Caleb, formed the copartnership of J. D. & C. Jones, and were prosperously engaged in business for the period of twenty-one years, during which time Pearl street was opened in order to accommodate the fast growing requirements of our mercantile interests under the following circum- stances: In 1830 J. W. Blachley, Avery & Sharpless, Goodman & Emerson, George Carlisle, C. & J. Bates, Ely Dorsey, R. B. Bowler, J. D. & C. Jones, bought from David Griffin 160 feet of ground on the south side of Pearl street, between Walnut and Main, and erected eight storehouses which were occupied in 1832, with the understanding that Griffin would erect a hotel on the corner of Walnut and Pearl. In fulfillment of this agreement the " Pearl Street House," of which the late Col. John Noble was proprietor, was built. Now not a vestige is left of the tavern which gave comfort and hospitable accommodations to the enterprising merchants of the West who came to this market for supplies; and of all the above-named parties the members of the last-mentioned firm are the sole survivors. And although with the vicissitudes of time these old landmarks and familiar faces have passed away, the Pearl street of former days still exists in influence and importance as the center of trade which has been expanded and enlarged commensurate with the growth of our city.

Mr. Jones was the senior partner successively of the firms of J. D. & C. Jones & Company and Jones Brothers & Company, and retired from all active participation in business in July, 1865, having been engaged in the dry-goods trade uninterrupt- edly for almost fifty years; during which time many of those who are now promi- nent among the merchants of our city were employed by him and received, in part, their mercantile education under his guidance and supervision. The history of this mercantile house, so well known in the East and West, is identified and coincident with the development of Cincinnati, commencing first in a small and unpretentious way, and closing a career of almost half a century as one of the most important and influential, as well as successful establishments in the West.

As a merchant Mr. Jones pursued a methodical and systematic business, giving his assiduous attention to the prosecution and management of what pertained to the tasks and labors devolving upon him; as a citizen he was associated in spirit and action with the party of progress and industry in most of the enterprises, public and private, which have facilitated the increase and development of the commercial, mercantile, banking and railroad interests of Cincinnati. In 1834 he was a member of the board of directors of the Lafayette Bank, and together with Josiah Lawrence, Judge David K. Este, Hon. Salmon P. Chase, and others, organized and for many

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years afterward continued in management of that influential corporation. He was actively interested as one of the original board of directors in the establishment of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad. For many years was treasurer of the board of trustees of the Cincinnati Orphans' Asylum, with which his wife was con- nected as one of the managers-an institution in whose management and welfare it was always his pride and pleasure to take the deepest interest, as well as to perform the laborious duties attached to the position of responsibility from which he was in time relieved by those who were younger and better able physically to fulfill the requirements of the position.

During the war of the Rebellion three of his sons were in the service of the United States, of whom William Graliam Jones, colonel of the Thirty-sixth O. V. I., a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, fell mortally wounded at the battle of Chickamauga, September 19, 1863; Charles Davis Jones, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, died in 1865 while lieutenant United States navy, having passed safely through the struggles and con- tests of his service in the war, and having been attached for some time to the frigate " Hartford" while floating the pennant of that gallant old hero, Admiral Farragut; and Frank J. Jones, who entered the army in April, 1861, as a private in the Guthrie Grays from Cincinnati, and returned home as captain and aid-de-camp United States Volunteers, in August, 1864, having served in the armies which operated in the South and West under Buell, Rosecrans and Thomas.

Mr. Jones resided at Glendale, one of the many pleasant villages in the vicinity of Cincinnati, in the quiet enjoyment of the society of his wife, and the comfort of good health and a pleasant home until his death in August, 1878; his wife died in November, 1878, and the remains of both lie buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

AUGUSTUS BEPLER, deceased banker and manufacturer of paper bags, was a native of Prussia, born August 9, 1828, son of David and Phillipine Bepler, the former of whom was a wine merchant and became very wealthy. Both he and his wife died in Europe, never visiting America. They had seven children, four of whom are living, one son, Edward, residing in Cincinnati, where he is an agent for ocean steamers.

Augustus Bepler, our subject, attended the universities of his native country, and was highly educated. In 1851 he immigrated to the United States and settled in Cincinnati, where he engaged for three years in the banking business with his brother, Edward. This was at a time so well-known by the citizens of that period, when everybody needed the services of a detective to determine whether or not the money presented was counterfeit or genuine. After retiring from the then unsatis- factory business of banking, Mr. Bepler began the manufacture of paper bags at Lockland, Hamilton county, where he did a successful business for three years and then removed his machinery to Cincinnati. He possessed fine inventive genius, devised a number of valuable machines for manufacturing paper bags, and applied his time diligently to his business affairs until failing health compelled him to retire. He consequently sold his factory, together with his machines and patents, to Chatfield & Woods, and spent the remainder of his life seeking a restor- ation of health. He died February 21, 1890, at New Orleans, while on a trip with his wife.

Mr. Bepler was married in 1855 to Adelaide, daughter of Dr. Ahrend, and they were blessed with five children: Bertha, Emma, Augusta, Helen and Julia, all of whom reside with their mother at their beautiful home on Tusculum Heights. The family adhere to the Protestant religion, and Mr. Bepler was a Republican in politics. Mr. Bepler was the architect of his own fortune, and was one of the few men who became rich and yet maintained a reputation spotless and unsullied. Truth, honor and fidelity was the platform on which he stood firm and unmovable. His generos- ity was without stint. Although he was naturally somewhat retiring and unostenta-

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tious, yet his banking and manufacturing interests brought him into contact with various classes of business life, so much so, that he was distinctively a man of the public, and will be remembered in history as one who did much to build up the community in which he lived, and who died honored and respected by all who knew him.

RICHARD NELSON was born in Castleward, County Down, Ireland, July 9, 1822, son of James and Catherine (Moore) Nelson. His father, who was a sea captain most of his life, retired in 1860 to reside with his daughter, Harriet Polly, whose husband held a position in the town of Downpatrick. He died in 1866, at the advanced age of eighty-four; his wife died in 1847. Their children were: George, Horatio, Ann Jane, Edward, Harriet, and William, of whom only two survive, Har- riet and William.

Richard Nelson received his schooling at first in the Parish of Bally- culter, until old enough to enter the English and classical academy at Strangford- the two being equally distant from home-about two English miles. The family removing to Belfast, his studies were seriously interrupted, so after spending some years in various occupations, a part of the time as cabin boy with his brother, Hora- tio, captain of the ship "Britannia," he resumed studies under two of the professors of the Belfast Institute, with the object of preparing for the Church of England, in which he was brought up. In 1844 he commenced a course of reading in theology under the late Rev. Dr. T. Campbell, then of Trinity church, and was engaged by the church as assistant in the management of the schools and in pastoral work. The church being an "incumbency " subject only to the bishop, it was not neces- sary for him to be in " orders" to perform the latter work. For the same reasons, the schools were not parish schools, conducted, as they were, under the Church Education Society. At that period, it will be remembered, Puseyism, or high church doctrine and practices, were then causing great commotion in ecclesiastical circles and, fearing Trinity would not be free of the tendency Romeward, he aban- doned the Church, accepting the position of tutor to the family of George Fawcett, of Esker. Within the year he married Miss Ellen Higginson, of Belfast, a grad- uate of the Home and Colonial Institute, London, England, and soon moved to Liverpool, England, to engage in the profession of teaching. The years 1848-49 were troublous times, the threatened rising in Ireland took place under John Mitchell, and, though an insignificant affair, Mr. Nelson felt like leaving a country that was constantly disturbed by the thriftless, shiftless, discontents of the South of Ireland. Of course he had the higher object in view, a higher exercise of the priv- ilege of the franchise and a wide field for the prosecution of study and exercise of any little educational talent with the preparation he had. In August, 1849, he reached Philadelphia, pushed forward to Barnesville, Ohio, where were near rela- tions, but soon accepted the professorship of Center Wheeling public schools. Less than two years' experience satisfied him that the school must be conducted in the interest of school directors and schoolbook publishers; so preparatory to his leaving for a larger city he accepted the position of clerk of the Circuit Court under Maj. Loring. In 1854 he was again in the profession, and also engaged in literary and accountant work, the former on the Kentucky side of the river, the latter in Cincin- nati. Moving among business men, he discovered that the commercial schools of the day, by turning the attention of their students to theoretical bookkeeping, failed to supply the wants of merchants who needed clerks, not bookkeepers. After spend- ing over a year in plans for the founding and management of a school that would better meet the requirements of the banking and business community, he opened the institution in which this is written. Embarrassed for the want of qualified teach- ers and text books, he had to make both, so, in 1859, he published "Nelson's Mer- cantile Arithmetic," and, in 1870, a small work on bookkeeping. In 1885 " Nelson's New Bookkeeping " appeared, and, in 1891, " Accounts and Business." The News

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and Educator, an educational paper, was published for a number of years, and later merged into an editorial magazine with Hon. A. J. Rickoff, editor-in-chief. He withdrew from the college in 1874, when it was carried on for a few years until his health was restored. In 1878 he resumed. In 1882, he opened a branch college in Springfield, Ohio, which continues in operation under his son R. J. Prior to that, in 1881, Miss E. founded the Nelson Ladies' Business College, which she con- ducted with success until 1885 when her health failing she retired, and the college was consolidated with the parent institution. In 18- A. E., who had been super- intendent of the parent college, founded a separate college in Memphis, Tenn., which he continues to conduct. In order to better perpetuate the business and secure it in the family, he incorporated the three institutions in Ohio under the title of The Nelson Business College Company, with an authorized capital of $50, 000, that being the amount upon which was calculated the business would pay six per cent. after deducting expenses.

In 1889 he opened a preparatory department with the object of better fitting young people for mercantile pursuits. He called a meeting of representative bank- ers and business men to give expression to their views on business education, and obtained their endorsement for a longer term of study on the part of the young people. The school proved a success, and their department of stenography, opened some time previously, with the addition of the preparatory department, called for separate and enlarged quarters, so the Annex on Fifth and Walnut was secured for their accommodation. Mr. Nelson was at one time, and for some years, chairman of the Text Book Committee of the International Business College Association, but the association was not prosperous, so only a few remained identified with such assemblies who have something to sell to the younger people of the profession. A

few of the colleges use his books, and once in a while he is asked for a " talk." It will be noticed by the readers of their circulars that they have been fortunate in having the patronage of wealthy, influential and cultured people as students and patrons, and continue to instruct that class. Students who prepare themselves satisfactorily can therefore always rely on getting positions in some of the hundreds of houses conducted by former students and graduates.

Mr. Nelson is a member of the Cincinnati Literary Society, and the Cincinnati Society of Natural History. In religion he is a Congregationalist, having left the Church of England and joined the Independents in Liverpool; the Church govern- ment is the same. He was one of the members that organized the Teachers' Rifle Company, but having a family of six depending on him for support, he was obliged to decline the honor of going to the front with his company and, accordingly, employed a substitute. His family of him and his wife numbers seven children: Dora, now Mrs. Dr. Geppert; Sophia S , now Mrs. G. M. Hammell; Ella, his asso- ciate in the profession; R. J., located in Springfield, in charge of the branch col- lege; Albert E., principal and proprietor of the Nelson Business College, and a member of the bar, Nashville, Tenn. ; H. H., chief accountant of the Dueber Watch Case Factory, Canton, Ohio. All three boys are married and have children.

ALEXANDER McDONALD was born at Forres, Morayshire, Scotland, September 25, 1833, and is the son of Alexander and Jeanette (Mckenzie) McDonald, both of whom were descended from old and historic Scottish families. They immigrated to the United States in 1851, and settled at Chillicothe, Ohio, where they passed the remainder of their lives, the father dying in 1863. They reared a family of seven children, of whom Alexander was the fourth in order of birth.

Our subject received his education in his native land, and came to America with his parents. His first business venture was merchandising and manufacturing at Chillicothe in partnership with his uncle, and in 1857 he came to Cincinnati and here embarked in mercantile and manufacturing pursuits, at first individually; but as his business connections grew more extensive he became associated with others, until at

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the present time his name is responsibly connected with many of the leading enter- prises of the Queen City. He is president of the Standard Oil Company, of Ken- tucky, the Ohio Coal & Mining Company, and the Commercial Club of Cincinnati; a stockholder and director in the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Rail- road Company, and the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railroad Company ; a director of the Third National Bank and the Equitable Insurance Company, and a trustee of the Cincinnati College of Music and of the Children's Home. For many years he was director of the Y. M. C. A., in the development of which institution he took an active interest. Mr. McDonald is emphatically one of the citizens of Cin- cinnati whom its people delight to honor as a stanch supporter of local interests and a firm believer in the future of the Queen City. Although a Republican in politics, and an ardent adherent of the principles of that party, he has never held public office, preferring to devote his entire attention to business, industrial and charitable affairs.

In 1862 he married Laura, daughter of Thomas Palmer, and they are the parents of one child, Laura, the wife of Edmund K. Stallo, a prominent member of the Cin- cinnati bar. Mr. and Mrs. McDonald are members of the Presbyterian Church, in which he is an elder and member of the board of trustees. Mrs. McDonald is presi- dent of the Cincinnati Presbyterian Hospital and of the Women's Medical College, and an active supporter of the Home for Aged Men and Women, and various other charities. Dalvay, their home at Clifton, is one of the finest private residences in Ohio. WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE. This eminent educator and writer was born in a log house, on a farm near Waynesville, Warren Co., Ohio, April 29, 1836. His father, William Venable, was a man of delicate tastes and marked powers of knowledge, the same traits which, in the more strongly gifted son, have combined to form one of the finest faculties for intellectual culture that this country can show. These gifts were early apparent in Venable's mind, and rapidly developed among the charms of a rural life, and the associations of a fine though humble home. By the time he was seventeen he had so far advanced in general book-knowledge as to apply for a certi- ficate to teach school, which was readily granted by the examiners of Warren county, one of the board, Josialı Hurty, praising Venable's acquirements in these words, which he wrote upon the margin of the certificate: "Mr. Venable is a better scholar than many older persons; I wish that all teachers were as well taught as he."

In November, 1854, he began teaching school at Sugar Grove, near Waynesville, at a salary of sixty cents a day. On his twentieth birthday he was awarded a life membership in the Southwestern State Normal School Association, and having by the next year made up his mind to carry the burdens of a pedagogue through life he took a position in the Lebanon Normal School, where he taught until some time in 1859, pursuing special studies meanwhile with Dr. W. D. Henkle. Nor was the young master's ardor confined to books alone, for during one of those years he saw some- thing of life by taking a pedestrian excursion through several southern States, and studying the miseries of slavery. In 1860 he resigned his position at Lebanon for the place of principal of the Jennings Academy at Vernon, Ind., where he taught for a year. It may be questioned whether the rising young scholar was drawn across the State line solely by the attraction of a professional position, for it was during his sojourn in Indiana that he was married to Miss Mary A. Vater, of Indianapolis, a lady whose graces of mind and character were in every way designed to allure the choice of such a nature as his. Some months after his marriage, viz., in September, 1862, being already well known in the West as a scholar and instructor, he located himself in Cincinnati, taking the position of professor of Natural Science in Chicker- ing Institute, in which celebrated academy he remained through twenty-four of the most active and fruitful years of his life, during five of which he was proprietor of the Institute. Upon retiring from Chickering's in January, 1886, Prof. Venable

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occupied himself in lecturing throughout the country, in writing for various maga- in zines and periodicals, and in preparing a number of books for publication. Some of his best and most valued works appeared during this term of authorship. In April, 1889, he was called to become a professor of Literature in the Cincinnati High School, which distinguished position he still holds.

Dr. Venable's merits and labors have won him many titles and honors. Besides the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws, conferred upon him by De Pauw and Ohio Universities, he has held or holds memberships in several of the most noted learned societies of the country. One of these is the dignity of honorary member of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, a distinction which only five per- sons besides himself have enjoyed, among them ex-Presidents Harrison and Hayes, and Francis Parkman. In 1891 he was offered the presidency of the Association of Western Writers, in which Gen, Lew Wallace and James Whitcomb Riley held high places, but he found it inconvenient to accept. At the Republican State convention in 1886 he was supported by the best element of Ohio, as candidate for the office of State School Commissioner.

A mere list of the works which have built up Prof. Venable's fame would fill the remaining space of this article. Several of these were written at the request of the foremost business men of Cincinnati, and have been of special service to his city and State. His "Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley" will always pos- sess as much value and interest to western readers as Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" to students of English literature. As an educational writer and lecturer, he is esteemed not only throughout every western State, but among the haughtiest cities and colleges in New England and New York. But it is not strange that he is so widely felt as an educational force; his theories are never out of proportion to his practice. No man knows better than Venable how to utilize the ideal while idealiz- ing the practical. His "History of the United States " has a wide circulation; his latest essay," Let Him first be a Man," is one of the most highly commended books from the American press. As a poet his reputation extends beyond his own country. English readers know his name, and some of his poems have been trans- lated and reprinted in Germany and Austria. Knortz's German History of Ameri- can Literature, printed in Berlin in 1891, gives several pages to his writings. Much of his extensive reputation as a poet he owes to his beautiful early production, "The Teacher's Dream." His "June on the Miami," and "Melodies of the Heart," re- veal some of the most ideal visions of the poetic temperament. Longfellow, Holmes and Stedman, Presidents Grant, Garfield and Hayes, and other authors and states- men of renown, have testified their appreciation of Venable's poetry as freely as the untechnical critics of the general public.

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History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; their past and present, Part 78

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