History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 85

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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In all the walks of life he was distinguished for moral rectitude, honesty, and mcorruptible integ- rity. As a gentleman of general information he rarely, met with his peer, for, like John Quincy Adams, he never forgot what he read, and it was this gift that made him the remarkable conversationalist and controversialist that he was. He was a devout and active member of the Congregational church, and one of its most valued supporters. Ile was mar- ried in 1815 to Miss Almira Mills Foot, a lady of great force of character, of amiable disposition, and of a most affectionate nature. She was born in Norfolk, Connecticut, in 1790, and was descended from Na- thaniel Foot, the first settler of Wethersfield, and was a half-sister of the late Joseph B. Cowles, of Austin- burg, and of the late Hon. Samuel Cowles, who died in Cleveland in 1837. After the death of his consort, which occurred in 1846, Dr. Cowles spent his remain- ing days among his children, who vied with each other in endeavoring to promote his comfort and smooth the ways of his declining days. He died in June, 1861, at the residence of his son, Mr. Edwin Cowles, in Cleveland. Had he lived only one and a half years longer he would have witnessed the great desire of his

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heart-the abolition of slavery. As it was, hke Moses of old, " he died in sight of the promised land."

Dr. Cowles had six children. His first child, Sam- uel, died when three years of age. His second. Giles Hooker, died in Cleveland, aged twenty-three, leaving four, who are living: Mrs. Helen C. Wheeler, of But- ler, Missouri: Judge Samuel Cowles, of San Fran- cisco, California; Edwin Cowles, editor of the Leader, Cleveland: and Alfred Cowles, one of the publishers of the Chicago Tribune.

EDWIN COWLES.

Edwin Cowles, editor and printer, was born in Austinburg, Ashtabula county, Ohio, September 19, 1825. Ilis father was the late Dr. Edwin W. Cowles just noticed. Ilis ancestors were all of Puritan de- scent, except one line, which traces its origin to the Huguenots. On his father's side he is descended from one of three brothers who settled in the town of Farmington, Connecticut, in 1652. On his grand- mother's side, who was a Miss Abigail White of Stamford, Connecticut, he is a direet descendant of Peregrine White, the first white child born in New England: and also of a Huguenot by the name of De Grasse, which name was changed subsequently to Weed. The Rev. Thomas Ilooker, the first clergy- man who was settled in Connecticut, was also one of Mr. Cowles' ancestors, On his mother's side he was descended from Nathaniel Foote, the first settler of Wethersfield, Connecticut,

ITis boyhood days were spent in Cleveland, with the exception of a few years that he lived in Anstin- burg, and in Detroit where his father resided for a short time. In 1839 he commenced learning the trade of a printer and served his time mostly with the late Josiah A. Harris, then editor of the Cleveland Herald. Ile finished his education at Grand River Institute in 1843. At the age of eighteen, he em- barked in the printing business in company with Mr. T. H. Smead, under the firm name of Smead & Cowles. In 1853 he dissolved partnership with Mr. Smead and became a member of the firm of Medill, Cowles & Co., publishers of the daily Forest City Democrat, which was the result of the consolidation of the daily True Democrat and daily Forest City. Both papers had been published as losing ventures, the former by John C. Vaughan and the latter by Joseph Medill. In 1854 the name of the paper was changed to Cleve- land Leader. In 1855 Messrs. Medill and Vanghan sold out to Mr. Cowles and removed to Chicago, where they purchased the Chicago Tribune, of which Mr. Cowles' brother, Alfred, became the business manager.

During the winter of 1854-55 the first movement which led to the formation of the great Republican party was made in the Leader editorial room, result- ing in the issuing of the call for the first Republican convention ever held, which met in Pittsburg. The

gentlemen who held that meeting in the editorial room were Messrs, John C. Vanghan, Joseph Medill, J. F. Keeler. R. C. Parsons. R. P. Spalding and others whose names are not remembered. The result of that convention was the consolidation of the Free Soil, Know-nothing and Whig parties into one great party, the history of which is well known.

Mr. Cowles carried on the paper alone until 1866, when he organized the Cleveland Leader Printing Company, of which he retained a controlling inter- est. Ile acted as business manager of the Leader until 1860, when he assumed the chief-editorship. From this time he steadily rose to prominence as an editor because of the strength and boldness of his ut- terances and his progressive and decided views on pop- ular topics, which soon made his journal one of the most powerful in the West. While the terrible black cloud of secession was looming up in 1860-61, Mr. Cowles took a firm position in the columns of the Leader in favor of the government suppressing the heresy of secession with the army and navy if neces- sary. In 1861 he was appointed postmaster of ('leve- land and held that office for five years. Under his administration he established and perfected the system of free delivery of mail matter by carriers.

In 1861 Mr. Cowles first suggested, in his paper, the nomination by the Republican party of David Tod, a war Democrat, for the purpose of uniting all the loyal elements in the cause of the Union. The suggestion was adopted, and Mr. Tod was nominated and elected. That same year, immediately after the battle of Bull Run, Mr. Cowles wrote an editorial headed " Now is the time to abolish slavery." He took the position that the South, being in a state of rebellion against the general government had forfeited all right to property-that the government had the same right to abolish slavery for the purpose of weak- ening the resources of the Confederacy by liberating in its midst a prodneing class from which it mainly derived its sinews of war, as it had to capture and destroy rebel property, burn towns, etc., as a mili- tary necessity. For taking this advanced position the Leader was severely criticised by a portion of the Re- publican press, which declared that it was aiding the rebellion by creating dissatisfaction among the war Democrats of the north. In less than one year after the publication of that article President Lincoln issued his preliminary emancipation proclamation, which embodied precisely the same views,

In 1863 Mr. Cowles suggested in the Leader the name of John Brough to succeed Governor Tod in the gubernatorial chair. It was after the name of Vallandigham, had been taken up by the Democracy for that office, and at a period during the war previous to the surrender of Vicksburg and the battle of Gettysburg, when the Union armies had met with a series of reverses, and discomagement had commenced its work among the conservative loyal element. The nomination of Vallandigham, following the election of 1862, when the Demo-

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crats had carried Ohio by a large majority. cre- ated great alarm among the friends of the Union for fear that the discouraging military outlook would have its effect toward favoring the peace-at-any-price party. Mr. Brough, though formerly a life-long Democrat, was a firm Union man under all circum- stances, and withal his reputation for great executive ability was widely known, and for these reasons his name was announced as a candidate for governor in the Leader. It was warmly seconded by the loyal press, and he was nominated and elected by more than one hundred thousand majority over Mr. Val- landigham. Governor Brough, and Governors An- drews and Morton, formed that famous trio of great war governors whose names will go down in history side by side with Lincoln, Grant, Stanton and Chase.

In 1820, Mr. Cowles' attention having been called to the great danger that existed from the various rail- road crossings in the valley of the Cuyahoga between the hights of the east and west sides of Cleveland, he conceived the idea of a high bridge, or viaduet as it is generally called, to span the valley and Cuyahoga river, connecting the two hill tops, thus avoiding go- ing up and down hill and crossing the "valley of death." Ile wrote an elaborate editorial favoring the city's building the viaduct. His suggestion met with fierce opposition from the other city papers, it being considered by them utopian and unnecessary, but it was submitted to the popular vote and carried by an immense majority. This great work, costing nearly three millions, is one of the wonders of Cleveland.

In 1826 Mr. Cowles was elected a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati, which nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for President. He represented Ohio in the committee on platform, and was the author of the seventh plank favoring a con- stitutional amendment forbidding appropriations out of any public fund for the benefit of any institution under sectarian control. The object of this amend- ment was two-fold: first, to forever settle the ques- tion of dividing the school fund for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church; second, to guard the future from the encroachment of that Church that is sure to result from its extraordinary increase in numbers.

In 1877 he was complimented by President Hayes by being appointed one of the honorary commission- ers to the l'aris Exposition.

Mr. Cowles has now been connected with journal- ism for over a quarter of a century. The experience of his paper has been like the history of all daily pa- pers. It had sunk previous to his being connected with it over thirty thousand dollars. The first nine years after he had taken hold of it, it sunk over forty thousand dollars more, and at the end of that time it commenced paying expenses, eventually resulting in his being able to pay off every cent of indebtedness. Its business has increased tenfold under his adminis- tration, and it also has the largest daily circulation of any paper west of the Alleghenies, with the exception of two papers in Chicago, one in St. Louis, and one

in Cincinnati, and has more than double the circula- tion of all the other Cleveland papers combined. When he commenced his editorial career, his staff consisted of himself, one associate, and one city editor. Now it is composed of himself as chief editor, one managing. four assistant editors, and an editor each in charge of the commercial, city, literary and dramatic, and telegraphic departments, also one in charge of the Washington branch office, and four reporters-fourteen in all. His chief characteristic as an editor, is his fearlessness in treating all ques- tions of the day without stopping to consider "whether he will lose any subscribers" by taking this side or that. ITis great ambition is to have the Leader take the lead in the work of reform, the promulga- tion of progressive ideas, the elevation of humanity to as high a seale as possible, and to oppose in every shape tyranny and injustice, whether of church, State, capital, corporation, or trade-nnions, and at the same time to make it the most influential paper in the State, if not in the West.

Mr. Cowles' success in life has been attained under extraordinary disadvantages. From his birth he was afflicted with a defect in hearing which caused so pe- culiar an impediment of speech that no parallel case was to be found on record. Until he was twenty- three years of age the peculiarity of this impediment was not discovered. At that age Professor Kennedy, a distinguished elocutionist, became interested in his case, and after a thorough examination it was found that he never heard the hissing sound of the human voice, and consequently had never made that sound. Many of the consonants sounded alke to him. Ile never heard the notes of the seventh octave of a piano or organ, never heard the upper notes of a violin, the fife in martial music, never heard a bird sing, and has always supposed that the music of the birds was a poetical fiction. This discovery of his physical defect enabled him to act accordingly. After much time spent in practicing, nader Professor Kennedy's tui- tion, he was enabled to learn arbitrarily how to make the hissing sound. but he never hears the sound him- self, although he could hear ordinarily low-toned conversation.

As a citizen Mr. Cowles was ever active in all be- nevolent and charitable enterprises, giving liberally to them according to his means, and devoting the influence of his journal to their support and encour- agement.

Mr. Cowles is wedded to his profession, and never expects to leave it for any other; in other words, he expects to die in the harness. Owing to the power of the press in controlling public sentiment, backed up as it is by the aid of wonderful lightning printing machinery, the telegraph, that great association for the collection of news-the associated press, the division of intellectual labor into different depart- ments, and the fast railroad trains, he considers journalism, if only managed in the interests of religion, morals, humanity, and of doing the greatest

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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.

erats had carried Ohio by a large majority, cre- ated great alarm among the friends of the Union for fear that the discouraging military outlook would have its effeet toward favoring the peace-at-any-price party. Mr. Brongh, though formerly a life-long Democrat, was a firm Union man under all circum- stanees, and withal his reputation for great executive ability was widely known, and for these reasons his name was announced as a candidate for governor in the Lender. It was warmly seconded by the loyal press, and he was nominated and elected by more than one hundred thousand majority over Mr. Val- landigham. Governor Brough, and Governors An- drews and Morton, formed that famous trio of great war governors whose names will go down in history side by side with Lincoln, Grant, Stanton and Chase.

In 1820, Mr. Cowles' attention having been called to the great danger that existed from the various rail- road crossings in the valley of the Cuyahoga between the hights of the east and west sides of Cleveland, he conceived the idea of a high bridge, or viadnet as it is generally called, to span the valley and Cuyahoga river, eonneeting the two hill tops, thus avoiding go- ing up and down hill and crossing the "valley of death." lle wrote an elaborate editorial favoring the city's building the viaduet. His suggestion met with fieree opposition from the other city papers, it being considered by them utopian and unnecessary, but it was submitted to the popular vote and carried by an immense majority. This great work, costing nearly three millions, is one of the wonders of Cleveland.

In 1826 Mr. Cowles was elected a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati, which nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for President. Ile represented Ohio in the committee on platform, and was the author of the seventh plank favoring a con- stitutional amendment forbidding appropriations out of any publie fund for the benefit of any institution under sectarian control. The object of this amend- ment was two-fold: first, to forever settle the ques- tion of dividing the school fund for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church; second, to guard the future from the eneroachment of that Church that is sure to result from its extraordinary increase in numbers.

In 1847 he was complimented by President Hlayes by being appointed one of the honorary commission- ers to the Paris Exposition.

Mr. Cowles has now been connected with journal- ism for over a quarter of a century. The experience of his paper has been like the history of all daily pa- pers. It had sunk previons to his being connected with it over thirty thousand dollars. The first nine years after he had taken hold of it, it sunk over forty thousand dollars more, and at the end of that time it commeneed paying expenses, eventually resulting in his being able to pay off every cent of indebtedness. Its business has increased tenfold under his adminis- tration, and it also has the largest daily circulation of any paper west of the Alleghenies, with the exception of two papers in Chicago, one in St. Louis, and one

in Cincinnati, and has more than double the circula- tion of all the other Cleveland papers combined. When he commenced his editorial career, his staff consisted of himself, one associate, and one city editor. Now it is composed of himself as chief editor, one managing, four assistant editors, and an editor each in charge of the commercial, city, literary and dramatic, and telegraphic departments, also one in charge of the Washington branch office, and four reporters-fourteen in all. llis chief characteristic as an editor, is his fearlessness in treating all ques- tions of the day without stopping to consider "whether he will lose any subscribers" by taking this side or that. His great ambition is to have the Leader take the lead in the work of reform, the promulga- tion of progressive ideas, the elevation of humanity to as high a scale as possible, and to oppose in every shape tyranny and injustice, whether of church, State, capital, corporation, or trade-unions, and at the same time to make it the most influential paper in the State, if not in the West.

Mr. Cowles' success in life has been attained under extraordinary disadvantages. From his birth he was afflicted with a defeet in hearing which caused so pe- enliar an impediment of speech that no parallel case was to be found on record. Until he was twenty- three years of age the peculiarity of this impediment was not discovered. At that age Professor Kennedy, a distinguished elocutionist, became interested in his case, and after a thorough examination it was found that he never heard the hissing sound of the human voiee, and consequently had never made that sound. Many of the consonants sounded ahke to him. Ile never heard the notes of the seventh octave of a piano or organ, never heard the upper notes of a violin, the fife in martial music, never heard a bird sing, and has always supposed that the music of the birds was a poetical fiction. This discovery of his physical defect enabled him to act accordingly. After much time spent in practicing, under Professor Kennedy's tui- tion, he was enabled to learn arbitrarily how to make the hissing sound, but he never hears the sound him- self, although he could hear ordinarily low-toned conversation.

As a citizen Mr. Cowles was ever active in all be- nevolent and charitable enterprises, giving liberally to them according to his means, and devoting the infinence of his journal to their support and encour- agement.

Mr. Cowles is wedded to his profession, and never expects to leave it for any other; in other words, he expects to die in the harness. Owing to the power of the press in controlling publie sentiment, backed up as it is by the aid of wonderful lightning printing machinery, the telegraph, that great association for the collection of news-the associated press, the division of intellectual labor into different depart- ments, and the fast railroad trains, he considers journalism, if only managed in the interests of religion, morals, humanity, and of doing the greatest

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

good to the greatest number, the grandest of all pro- ; land, which position. with a brief interruption, he fessions.

Mr. Cowles was married in 1849, to Miss Elizabeth C. Hutchinson, daughter of the Hon. Mosely Hutch- inson, of Cayuga. New York. Ile had by this union six children, Myra F. who married Mr. Chas. W. Chase, a merchant of Cleveland: Helen II., Eugene II., Alfred H., Lewis 11., and Edwin. The youngest, Edwin, died in infancy. His eldest son, Eugene, is a member of the Leader editorial staff, having charge of the Washington office as correspondent.

SAMUEL COWLES.

Samnel Cowles, a lawyer, was born in Norfolk, Con- nectient, June 8, 1725, and died at Cleveland, Ohio, in November, 1832. His father was a representative New England farmer. He was educated at Williams College, and graduated there in the year 1798, after- wards serving as tutor there for two years, when he commenced the study of law in Hartford. and was admitted to the bar. He practiced his profession in Farmington and Hartford till abont 1820, when he removed to Cleveland, then a village of about five hundred inhabitants. There he went into partnership with the late Alfred Kelley, and carried on the law business with him for several years. Afterward Mr. Cowles formed a copartnership with a late student of his, Sherlock J. Andrews; finally giving the busi- ness up to him and retiring from the practice of his profession about the year 1834. Hon. J. W. Allen studied law under Mr. Cowles in the year 1825. In 1839 he was appointed a judge of the court of com- mon pleas, which position he filled at the time of his death.

In 1832 Mr. Cowles was married in Lenox, Massa- chusetts, to Miss Cornelia Whiting. In 1833 he erected the mansion on Enelid avenne, now used as an Ursuline convent, and resided in it till his death. Ile was a good representative of the gentlemen of the old school, a high-minded lawyer, of irreproachable character, of dignitied bearing, and of the post fas- tidions tastes. His society was sought after, espe- cially by the cultivated. He was a brother-in-law of the late Dr. Edwin W. Cowles, and uncle to Mr. Edwin Cowles of the Cleveland Leader.

D. W. CROSS.

D. W. Cross, one of Cleveland's prominent citizens and leading capitalists, was born on the 17th of No- vember, 1814, in Richland (now Pulaski), New York, He received an excellent education at Hamilton Seminary (one of the foremost institutions of learn- ing in the State), and, upon the completion of his studies in 1836, removed to Cleveland, where he en- tered the law-office of Messrs. Payne & Wilson as a. student.

While thus employed he received, in 1832, an appointment as deputy collector of the port of Cleve-

retained for eighteen years. During that time he effected many useful reforms and improvements in the management of the custom-house, and received from the secretary of the treasury a gift of $500 as an acknowledgement of his zeal and energy.

During the first years of his holding the office he continued his law studies, and in due season was admitted to practice in both the State and United States courts. In 1844 he joined Mr. Robert Parks in a law partnership which continued until the death of that gentleman in 1860. In 1848 and 1849 he was elected township-clerk of Cleveland (an important office) by overwhelmingly large majorities, and in 1849 was chosen a member of the city council.

In 1855 Mr. Cross entered npon the most impor- tant enterprise of his life, that of coal-mining. In company with Oliver H. Perry he purchased one hundred and tifty acres of land, and leased several other tracts, upon Mineral Ridge, in the Mahoning valley, the coal deposits in which were beginning to promise important results if properly worked. Messrs. Perry & Cross entered promptly and actively into the business of coal mining, and soon landed upon the Cleveland docks, rie the Pennsylvania and Ohio canals, the first cargoes of coal shipped from Mineral Ridge to Cleveland.

In 1859 Mr. Perry transferred his interest to Henry B. Payne, the firm being continued as D. W. Cross & Co. In 1860 it received an additional part- ner in the person of Lemuel Crawford, who retired in 1861 and was succeeded by Isaac Newton; the lirm name being changed to Cross, Payne & Co. Business operations were at this time materially widened by the purchase of new coal mines, by the construction of docks, and by the building of a rail- way to connect the Summit Bank with the canal, at Middlebury.

In 1867 Mr. Cross retired from the firm of Cross, Payne & Co., and rested awhile upon the fruits of his industry.

Since his retirement from the firm, however, Mr. Cross has retained his connection with the coal interest. to a considerable extent, and is to-day the owner of some of the most valuable coal lands in the State. Ilis identification with the early coal trade of the Mahoning valley, and its prosperous development under his efforts, were facts of such importance, not only in his career but in that of Cleveland, that it would be very difficult to separate entirely the his- tory of his lite from that of the great business just alluded to.

His was the mind that saw how important and necessary it was that Cleveland should have cheap coal, to the end that she might become a great mann- facturing city, and in opening the way for cheap fuel he furnished the opportunity for which Cleveland had so long waited.

Although no longer immediately connected with the coal trade, Mr. Cross is still actively engaged in

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important business enterprises, for a temperament like his could not be well satisfied with entire inaetiv- ity; but, naturally, he enjoys substantial immunity from the anxieties and labors incident to his earlier experience. The interests of three important manu- facturing corporations receive the benefits of his atten- tion. Of each of two of these-the Winslow Car Roofing Company and the Cleveland Steam Gange Company -- he is the president, and of a third-the Amherst Stone Company-he is a director. To the conduct of these extensive enterprises Mr. Cross gives careful heed, and their substantial success testities to his excellent administration.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 85

Author: Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716