History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 39

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 39
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 39

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Arthur H. was born at Deerfield, New Hampshire, March 19, 1819, and, as I think, was the eldest of a large family, mostly boys. In his infancy the family removed to Crown Point, Essex county, New York, and thence to Troy, when he was twelve. One can imagine that the Thrasher boys were not spoiled by their father with indulgence. His notions of parental authority must have been whole- some.

I have no glimpse of Arthur until he was sixteen or eighteen, when I hear of him at school in Parkman. Later I hear of his occupying an otherwise deserted log cabin, subsisting himself, by the aid of brother and sisters, in Troy, under the tuition of the late B. F. Abel, Esq., an accomplished teacher and one of the most amiable of men. Here he was deep in the classics.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

I also hear of him in school at Delaware, Ohio, of his teaching for short periods. His father seems to have early left him to himself, probably about all he could do for him; and to one of the nature, character, and aspirations of young Arthur, this could be done with absolute safety. Emulous, pure-hearted, patient, hopeful, docile, but high-spirited and proud, an early death or honorable suc- cess invariably attends such youths. Under the difficulties surrounding him he made his way-may have matured slowly. So much the better in the long ardu- ous struggle in life. At ten, fifteen, or twenty-five no man can with any cer- tainty forecast the five or six great men of forty years hence-perhaps not one of the five hundred extraordinary, or even of the one thousand distinguished, of that future. His grasp of a knotty point, a problem, was that of a vice. He held it till he extracted its secret, till it dissolved to simples, in his hand.

In 1844 he entered the law-office of Hitchcock & Wilder as a student of law. After a few months he went to Southern Indiana and taught school. Here with a brother he purchased a drove of swine, which they took to New Orleans. It proved a bad speculation. He, however, managed to return to the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1848. For the ensuing two years he made Troy his headquarters, attended to cases before magistrates, and appeared in some trials at Ravenna and Chardon.

In 1850, on the removal of A. G. Riddle to Cleveland, at his request, Mr. Thrasher became a member of the firm of Phelps, Riddle & Thrasher. Subse- quently, of the firms of Riddle & Thrasher; Riddle, Thrasher & Williston ; Phelps & Thrasher; and Thrasher, Durfee & Hathaway, practicing in Geauga and Lake, with excursions into Ashtabula and Portage. He lived in Chardon till his death, December 9, 1864, at the early age of forty-five.

Mr. Thrasher never held an office, never sought one. He was a thorough lawyer. It opened a field of labor which enlisted all his powers ; its successes gratified his ambition, its emoluments gave him the means of liberal living, and with his care would have produced affluence. The firm of which he first became a member had one.side, usually the plaintiffs, of quite all the cases in Geauga, and a fair practice in Lake.

Mr. Thrashet's ability and industry, with the aid of Mr. Riddle in trials, kept up and rather increased it, especially in Lake. His application approached the wonderful. He thoroughly mastered the law. That which he once secured he always retained. No hint of fact or law was lost on him. As fast as means permitted he added to the library, and his books were implements of warfare, not embellishments to attract or please the eye. The practice of the law with him was a constant conflict. The declaration was a declaration of war,-in- stant, relentless, and without quarter or cessation ; always pushed to extremity, never abandoned till the end was reached; ever renewed till the last honorable expedient was exhausted. His client was his friend, brother, himself. His cause, his cause; his feelings, his feelings; his opponent, his advocate's enemy. He supplemented the knowledge and zeal of the lawyer with the interest, zeal, and animosity of the party. While this secures the utmost fidelity, the most untiring, persistent attention and labor, the brain is sometimes too heated, and the mists of passion obscure the vision. The danger is, your opponent becomes your enemy,-never can become your client. There never was a safer man to entrust a case to than Arthur H. Thrasher. No man ever dreamed of corrupting him. " The cause he knew not he searched out," literally. If law there was in all the books that would help him, his counsel would certainly find and bring it forward. If a man in the world knew a thing which would aid him, his counsel would surely have him at the trial; and all that could be done in the way of preparation, care, and industry, a high degree of ability in the trial and presenta- tion of the case, without regard to the amount involved or the time consumed in the trial, were certain to be well and thoroughly done. The danger was over- work, too great care. He usually knew exactly what the witnesses on his side knew, and all they knew. He was often exacting as to the precise form of the words they should use, and he returned again and again to the point, often when unimportant, until he had it as he wished it ; or, as sometimes happened, in the forgetfulness, perversity, or anger of the witness, he was foiled altogether. As a lawyer, Mr. Thrasher ranked high. Time, growth, industry, talents, are all requisite to produce a lawyer. These would certainly have conducted him to the very foremost rank.

As an advocate, a speaker, he was strong, clear, argumentative, and forcible; was without imagination or fancy ; was always too intensely in earnest to indulge the vein of pleasant humor which made him a delightful companion. His speeches at times might have been improved in method and quite as effective if of diminished length. Sometimes after a masterly presentation of his case, in the fear that he had omitted something or had not produced it in its strength, he re- turned to different parts of it, at the hazard of weakening or confusing the effort as a whole. He had many of the advantages of a good speaker,-a fine, well- knit, tall, slender form ; open, frank, manly face (resembling his mother's race, I

am told); aquiline features; dark, fine eyes; glossy, wavy black hair, carefully arranged; and dressed with a neatness and style of costume unusual in a village, and which sometimes provoked the comment of the rustic. One of the most honorable and high-minded of men, he thought well of himself, though not too well. Modest he was, but he knew he was every inch a man, and always dressed and bore himself as became a man and the thorough gentleman that he was.

No man at the head of a large practice, which he pursued with the methods and industry of Mr. Thrasher, could long survive. Though with a fine physique, pure, temperate, blameless life, the man who should have gone on to the head of his profession, ruled on the Supreme Court bench of his State, presided as her chief magistrate, or, wiser still, have remained in private practice, so labored in it as to sap the foundations and conditions of life itself and die at the immature age of forty-five, distinguished in the small circle of two or three counties, and great only in possibility.

Among the cases of local celebrity which connect themselves with Mr. Thrasher's name are those of Lampson vs. Pool, of Troy, all about a yearling steer, which both claimed. It was rutted, had its tail cut in due form in the spring, and turned away with the herd on the rich Cuyahoga bottoms. In autumn it had waxed fat and kicked. Pool secured it; was sued by Lampson. It was worth seven dollars, cost a thousand, divided a township, illustrated a principle in the Supreme Court and the folly of the law as men appeal to it, and added much to Mr. Thrasher's reputation, who finally won it.

Then there was the case of Bosley vs. Spencer, for flowing water back onto his water-wheel, in South Thompson, which his side gained, mainly through his efforts. Tucker and Tucker, all about a puddle of water. The Tuckers, of Chardon, brothers, of narrow, strong, unyielding qualities, were at feud. There was an intermittent little brook meandering, when it could run, through a field of Hosea Tucker. At one point on the line between them a sup of it could at times be had, in an angle of the line fence on Orrin Tucker's side. Orrin had plenty of other water; could use this, when there was any, for stock. Hosea put in a stout fence at that point, which cut Orrin off. Orrin put a suit to him straightway ; employed able counsel. Thrasher & Co. defended. Five years the war lasted. Orrin was beaten finally, and ruined, and Dr. Thrasher uttered an epigram on the poor old mother of these sons.

Who in Geauga and Lake does not remember Mrs. Fuller's case vs. Hezekiah Cole, for breach of marriage promise, and every thing else, tried the last of many times at Painesville in February, 1861 ? Thrasher made the case, in a way. He resurrected the facts, and witnesses too, and finally secured a verdict, though others aided in the trial.

I need only mention the case of Ohio vs. Cole for poisoning his wife. In this . case Thrasher literally created the defense. He did very much to educate the medical witnesses, whose testimony was effectively used. It is true that on the final trial Renney and Labe Sherman made the speeches, but Thrasher was the life, brain, and spirit of the remarkable and successful defense. Indeed, so in- tense and long continued were his labors and anxiety in this case that I have always attributed the ruin of his own health to it. Cole's whole life was not worth the idlest moment of the brave spirit that dimmed its own earthly day for him.

Let it not be suspected for a moment that Mr. Thrasher's enemies even ever accused him of sharp practice or the use of unfair or dishonorable means in any of these ardently pursued cases. His warfare was open, frank, and most honorable.

On the 19th of December, 1850, Mr. Thrasher joined in marriage with Miss Mary A. Merriam, daughter of M. D. Merriam, Esq., of Burton, and grand- daughter of the late Johnson F. Wetton. Of attractive person, carefully educated, and very pleasing manners, devoted, and womanly, she brought to him the con- trasts and counterparts without which even devoted, untiring love may fail to secure rational happiness.

Of earnest and sincere convictions and reverent nature, Mr. Thrasher had always treated the subject of religion with respect. A year or two before his death he felt constrained to openly acknowledge his deepened convictions, and became an active member of an organized body of orthodox Christians. He was of the advanced on the subject of slavery, and behind none in ardent patriotism.

In his early years at the bar the intensity of his advocacy made him some enemies. As he advanced in years he softened somewhat the ardor of his invective. He came finally to understand that his opponents were not all totally depraved, and his clients and witnesses not monopolists of truth and virtue. All the world finally came to see the integrity and purity of his life; that his faults sprang wholly from his zeal for what to him was the cause of justice and truth ; and they felt and acknowledged the essential manliness, strength, and force of his character, and regarded him accordingly. Daily was he growing in the esteem, confidence, and respect of his fellows. More and more was it seen and felt that

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here was a strong, brave, pure man,-one to be trusted and confided in,-and he was rapidly reaching his proper place in the regards of men. In his own circle, by his own fireside, with his kin and friends, he was always the truest, tenderest, and most thoughtful of men, made up of the excellences of his father and uncle.

My hand lingers tenderly and lovingly over this sketch. I am loath to finish and leave it. I know it will have the tribute of my tears. He was one of the most cherished of my manhood's friends. When I clasped his hand in mine I knew that its pulse was absolute truth,-that his instincts were loyal and his spirit high and pure.

Of his marriage was born a son, Albert J., May 3, 1858. He has the manly figure and bearing, with the mentality, of his father; the blonde complexion, blue eyes, pleasing face, and sparkling manner of his mother. Thus far he has not developed the bodily vigor and hardihood which permits the devotion to study he would so much desire. That will come in time. He is an object of much interest to the wide circle of his father's friends. With his mother, whose life of pure widowhood is one of devotion to him, he finds his home, with her parents, at their pleasant retreat in Burton.

HON. B. B. WOODBURY.

The head, face, and eyes of this gentleman indicate the possession of qualities distinguishing him from the mass. Energy, enterprise, force of character, with breadth of intellect, are apparent there. One would expect success in life. His career is marked by these qualities, and success has been achieved without the suspicion of indirect means. Out of all the years of his active life, seemingly no memories can arise to cast shadows on his days of retirement.

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HON. B. B. WOODBURY.

Of good old English stock, carly planted in New England, his father, Daniel Woodbury, was born in Essex county, Massachusetts, in 1778, and carried to New London, New Hampshire, when he was six, by his parents, where he was reared, married, and lived till 1834. A stanch Democrat, and the first of that faith to be elected to office in New London. He served his town as representative in the Legislature, and in other capacities ; removed to Geauga in 1834, and died at Chardon in September, 1854, at seventy-six years of age, a man of marked traits of character and much intelligence.

The mother also was a native of Massachusetts, a Messenger, greatly esteemed in life, and, with her husband, a member of the Baptist church. She died at Char- don, May 8, 1856, aged seventy-eight. Of the eight children of these parents, the eldest, D. P., was a graduate of West Point, belonged to the engineer corps, and died in the service in 1864. Though never a resident, he was often in the county of Geauga. W. W. Woodbury, a younger brother, was a partner of B. B., and died at Chardon in 1849. James M., the youngest, was for many years a resident of Chardon, married Sophia Benton, of that place, and died in Illinois in 1850. A daughter, Mrs. Chase, was also a resident of Geauga. Of the family but three survive, the subject of this sketch and two sisters:

Benjamin B. was born at New London, Merrimac county, N. H., December 12, 1810, and grew up a New England farmer boy, in the tough, hard ways, as children would now think, to which the families of that day and region were necessarily

subjected. At three years of age he began to go to school, and secured about ten weeks each summer and winter, till at nine or ten, when steady work took the place of school. When sixteen and seventeen, he had three months each year at an academy, and this, with his intellectual quickness and intelligence, was all the help he ever derived from schools. At seventeen he taught school, and from that time on till twenty-two he taught winters and worked the rest of the year. In 1832 he went to Concord, now Lake County, where he had friends, and became a clerk in the establishment of T. Rockwell & Co., where he remained two years. In 1834 he returned to New Hampshire to aid his father in a removal, with the younger members of the family, to Ohio. Their first stay was in New- bury, where B. B. taught a school in the well-known West Part, in the winter of 1834-35. This was the Utley-Munn-Hayden neighborhood, and his school was attended by quite all the young people which at that important period of the town- ship history made up Newbury society. The school was long remembered, and Mr. Woodbury, then twenty-four, was for years the standard of excellence as a teacher, and never forgotten by the young ladies and gentlemen, his associates as well as scholars, of that memorable winter.

The ensuing year was spent in straightening up and closing out the affairs of Rockwell & Co., then came a year in charge of a blast-furnace company in Penn- sylvania, when he became a clerk on a steamboat, running from Pittsburg down the Ohio and the lower rivers, in which service he remained till 1840.

These were in the " flush times of the southwest," when steamboating on the Mississippi and its lower tributaries was full of that incident and adventure, half romance, half matter of hard fact, and all rough and robust life, on the borders of civilization, which used to startle and charm the northern reader, of whatever of its semi-savage usages and history which found relation in the current press. A volume of the occurrences and incidents of these four or five years, which happened to, and in the presence of, Mr. Woodbury might be written.

The clerk was the important man of the boat; of more consequence to the owners than the captain. Had more actual powers and greater responsibilities. He made all the contracts, saw to the receipt of all freights, its delivery, and the collection of all bills, and payment of all charges. It was new life and experi- ence to the New England clerk and schoolmaster, then in the early maturity of twenty-five, well-looking, of frank, gentlemanly manners, alert, shrewd, ready, modest, sagacious, and not wanting pluck. He was soon up to the whole science of the river, of advertising to leave at a certain hour, firing up, and yet holding steam and passengers twenty-four or thirty-six hours at Pittsburg, or stopping all that time at Wheeling for the stage-passengers from Washington. At Cincin- nati, Louisville, or St. Louis, till the hidden purpose was accomplished. He explored the business habits of the Wabash men, became familiar with the men and waters of the Tennessee and Cumberland; knew the manners and ways of life on Red river, and all the pleasant and piquant peculiarities of the lower river sporting world, and yet had the address to carry himself unharmed, and unsullied in person and character, through them all. He met the full variety of river life, was " snagged" on the third trip down, when the craft became an utter loss; was placed on a new boat, and for two or three of the last years her practical master as well as clerk.

Wearying of the life, desiring a different field and larger revenues, he left the river, and in June, 1840, with such savings as he had made, embarked in mer- chandise in Chardon, where he established. himself with his younger brother, W. W., in a general retail establishment, in the old Samuel Squires store, at the southeast corner of the square. This they carried on successfully for three years. Business then could alone be conducted' on a system of credits, so long and wide, as eventually to absorb the largest capital. At the end of three years the firm found all its means in debts due it, while its liabilities were almost alarmingly large. There was little money in the county. To force collections and pay off these liabilities was past the power of the shrewdest men. The county was full of good oxen, steers, sheep, and hogs. Indeed, after fifteen or sixteen years of dealing in cattle, Mr. Woodbury has been heard to say that the county at that time would support a third more stock than now. With the debts due them, evidenced by notes, the Woodburys went out and changed them for cattle and farm-stock, with the proceeds of which they met their own indebtedness, at least fifteen-sixteenths of it. In a comparatively short time cvery dollar was paid without a suit or compromise of a dollar.

This closing out of merchandise led to a change of business. Mr. Woodbury purchased the well-known stock-farm south of Chardon village, and became a most successful dealer in cattle for sixteen years. The junior partner died in 1849, after which the senior worked on alone. How lonely after his brother left his side no one knows. In business his methods were buying, improving, and selling at home. The risks and costs of an eastern market he left to others. He had facilities for wintering seventy-five head, and summering twice that number of cattle on his own lands.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

When he commenced as merchant he had but the savings of the wages of a few years as clerk. No one would hazard an opinion of the results upon retiring from the cattle trade. It might be safely said that he was a capitalist, knowing the full value of money, and had rendered the commercial equivalent of his acquisitions. Mr. Woodbury's promptness, the certainty with which he met every engagement, the sterling integrity which marked all his transactions, largely augmented his working capital, while the sagacity with which he conducted his affairs saved him from losses.

In the June of 1858 he was appointed to fill the post of county commissioner, vacant by the death of a member of the board, and was elected to succeed him- self at the ensuing election,-a rare thing for a resident of Chardon.

The office of commissioner is one of the most important in the county ; and in this position Mr. Woodbury's intelligence, business tact and skill, with his broad and liberal views, were of great service to the public, and contributed much to put the affairs of the county on the basis of enlightened business principles.

In 1861 he was elected to represent the county in the State Legislature, and re-elected in 1863, a great and unusual compliment to a dealer in stock by his customers and neighbors. This position, so often mistakenly estimated by the people, so often unworthily bestowed, has rarely been by the votes of Geauga committed to worthier hands.

Mr. Woodbury was reared a Democrat. To that party, with his father, he steadily adhered till 1844, when it became apparent to them that it was irrevoca- bly wedded to slavery, and they withdrew from it on the fullest convictions of their duty. During all the years of Republicanism he was a Republican by judgment and a patriotic sense of duty. Well informed, accustomed to liberal views, Mr. Woodbury carried into the House the same sagacity and appreciation of practical life and affairs which had marked his career in private life.

In nothing do the people more often blunder than in the qualities most useful to them in deliberative bodies. The ready, fluent speaker is usually their first choice. Such are often the most useless men in the body, and if they escape being bores their constituents may be regarded as fortunate. Every man is soon known by his fellows for his real worth, and esteemed accordingly ; and no quali- ties are valued higher, and none are found more useful in a legislative body, than a thorough and practical knowledge of business. Mr. Woodbury soon came to be known for his really useful talents and capacity, and was rated accordingly. Nature formed him for a ready and fluent speaker, but an early disease marred the organs of speech, notwithstanding which he became with practice a good business debater.

Mr. Woodbury shared all the earnestness of purpose and determination in action of the men of his section and party, on the breaking out of the war, to put down the rebellion. His prominence as a public man, and known energy and sagacity as a private individual, marked him as peculiarly well fitted for the important post of chairman of the military committee of the county. The histories of this and simi- lar organizations never have been, and probably never will be, written. Quite as important in their bearing on the results as the movements of men in the field, no éclat marked their most successful and important achievements, and at the end of the war they melted out of existence without note or word. A great necessity called them into existence; they met its demands, and disappeared. All that can be said is, that the chairman of the Geauga military committee promptly, faith- fully, and efficiently met the requisitions of the trying position, and performed its duties with unselfish and patriotic fidelity.

In the summer of 1867, Mr. Woodbury sold out his outlying real estate, and moved into the village of Chardon. Wishing for more active life, in the autumn of that year he became interested in a wholesale grocery establishment at Toledo, from which he withdrew the year following. He returned, but did not intend to remain in Chardon. The disaster of the fire overwhelmed the village, enlisted his sympathies, and in the effort to rebuild the town the sufferers received his hearty co-operation. The story of that effort is told in the history of Chardon. One hesitates to speak of the personal merits and deservings of some of the promi- nent actors in this enterprise, for fear that it might seem invidious. I believe it is conceded that, as president of the building association, Mr. Woodbury was of great service, while by his prominence in organizing the savings bank, and in the erection of its fine building, as well as in other ways, he liberally and effectively contributed to the reconstruction of the town.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 39

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443