History of Madison County Ohio: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Part 79

Author: Chester E. Bryan
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1207

USA > Ohio > Madison County > History of Madison County Ohio: Its People, Industries and Institutions > Part 79

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Mra Minnie J. (Creath) Bidwell taught twelve years in the London high school, and was principal of the high school for three years. This high school has an enrollment of one hundred and seventy-five pupils, graduating thirty-one with the class of 1915.

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During the previous year a class of forty-two was graduated from the high school. Mrs. Bidwell began her career as a high school instructor about 1903, and for a number of years taught English and history. Before this she had taught first in the schools .of Range township, and afterward in the city schools, where she taught all grades (except the fourth) at various times.

While engaged in teaching Mrs. Bidwell was a prominent worker in teachers' insti- tutes and teachers' associations, including the National Educational Association. She has also been prominent in the work of women's clubs in Madison county. She is ardently devoted to educational work, and also takes an active interest in the work of the Presbyterian church, of which she is an earnest and devoted member. Mrs. Bidwell spent the summer of 1913 touring Europe. She visited Italy, Germany, England, Scot- land, Ireland and other old world countries.

On September 12, 1913, just after her return from abroad, Minnie J. Creath was married to Lester J. Bidwell, and they are now residing in London.

GUY UNDERWOOD.

Among the prominent London attorneys is Guy Underwood, a native of this city, who has served as private secretary to a member of Congress from this district, as assistant librarian of the House of Representatives, as Washington correspondent of the Ohio State Journal, and as campaigner in behalf of the re-election of President Taft in 1912.

Guy Underwood was born in London, January 3, 1867, and is the son of the late Dr. A. H. Underwood, who was born on April 21, 1836, in Brimfield, Portage county, Ohio. Dr. A. H. Underwood read medicine with Dr. A. S. Weatherby at Cardington, Ohio, in 1862, and was graduated from the Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1865. He began the practice of medicine at South Charleston, and in February, 1866, came to London where he practiced his profession continuously until his death. September 2, 1890.

Born in London, reared in this city where he received the rudiments of an education, having graduated from the London high school with the class of 1884, Guy Underwood has become a well-known attorney in this section of the state. He taught school for four years in Madison county, and served as deputy county clerk for four years under Frank Dun and as deputy county treasurer under John T. Vent, serving the first part of two terms.

In April, 1890. Mr. Underwood was appointed bookkeeper in the sixth auditor's office of the treasury department at Washington, D. C. When George W. Wilson, of London, was elected to Congress, in 1892, he chose Mr. Underwood as his private secretary. This position was held for a period of one term, and Mr. Underwood was appointed as assistant librarian of the House of Representatives, which position be held until 1901, a period of seven years. Mr. Underwood was Washington correspondent of the Ohio State Journel on the floor of the House of Representatives. In the meantime. he gradu- ated from the old Columbian, now the George Washington Law School, with the class of 1896, and later took a post-graduate course in the same school. He was admitted at this time to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. After leaving Washington, Mr. Underwood began the practice of law at London. He has since prac- ticed there, with the exception of about one year and one-half, in 1913 and 1914, when he was located at Seattle, Washington. A Republican in politics, Mr. Underwood "stumped" the state of Washington and also the state of Ohio in the second campaign of President Taft.

In June, 1901. Guy Underwood was married to Alice Guy, daughter of W. H. Guy

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of .Pike township, Madison county, Ohio. They have one son, Guy Underwood, Jr., who is eight years old.

Mr. Underwood is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and at the old Columbian University, was a member of the Greek letter society, Phi Gamma Delta. Mrs. Under- wood is a member of the Episcopal church, and is prominent in the various societies and activities of this church.

CHARLES SHERWOOD.

The words "London, Ohio," with the trade mark wreath in gold is the only adver- tisement on the end of the "London" copper-finished vault. This trade-mark is viewed by thousands every day at interments in every part of the United States. And so it is a fact that the "London" vault advertises Madison county.

This vault is a London invention. Several years ago Charles Sherwood conceived the idea of an ornamented vault. Up to that time grave vaults had been strictly utilitarian, made for use and, while there were a number that were made which were satisfactory, Mr. Sherwood felt that this article (used at a time of great tension) should be more than a mere steel rough box. So, after designing an especially effective lock and other mechanical features, he drew the original plans and took out patents on the device practically as it is made now.

The finished article, as made by the London Grave Vault Company, is conceded even by competitors to be the most beautiful and satisfactory article of its kind on the market. So that in this instance, as well as in others, London, Ohio, stands for "first grade." The vault was developed in its entirety in London by the best grade of designing talent that could be secured. It is first class in every particular as is the concern which makes it.

As the general manager of this concern, Mr. Sherwood is doing his share toward placing London as a high-grade manufacturing center. The carefully prepared literature of the company goes to all parts of the United States, and the company has customers now in forty of the states.

As the "London" vault is favorably known locally, it is scarcely necessary to refer to the beauty of the design, and to the security which it gives, not only from grave robbery, but from water in the grave. Many Madison county citizens have felt and appreciated the relief which this excellent device has given them at the one moment when any relief is so acceptable. This relief is not only due to the positive assurance of protection. but also to the beauty which this device lends to the last moment at the grave side. The time has passed when those who are left are called on to suffer from the thought that the remains of their beloved repose in a water-filled grave. The time is also passed when those who are left will remember only the crude rough-box that cov- ered the casket. For the beauty of the "London" vault, with its positive assurance of safety. has eliminated all of this.

If the "London" vault were a common-place steel box, as are all of the other vaults, while London might be proud of the success of the institution making such a vault, it would not have the satisfaction that it now has. For the "London" grave vault, in its beautiful copper finish and with its well-designed and massive bronze rests, is a thing of beauty. It stands in the first class. Mr. Sherwood's credit lies in the conception and execution of an article that is far in advance of anything of the kind that has ever been manufactured. And London and Madison county are benefiting by this commercial and artistic idea properly put into execution.

The London Grave Vault Company is well worth a visit and any who are interested are always welcome to the factory, which is on the Big Four track west of Maple street.

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It occupies two and one-half acres of ground, and the building is of brick and steel con- `struction. The company does an annual business of one hundred thousand dollars and it is certain that this will be increased many fold in the next few years.

MICHAEL S. MURRAY.

That there are enormous differences in the casual power exerted by different minds, depending on their place of vantage in the social system, is, of course, true. Most men merely echo the prevailing opinion or swell the general tide of passion. Even so, such men in the aggregate give to opinion its tendency to prevail, and to passion its tidal and overwhelming power. But the contribution of a single member of the mass is not comparable with that of the individual who occupies a place of prominence or authority. Such a mind operates at a source, coloring all that springs from it, or at a crucial point, where every slight deflection is enormously magnified in the consequence. There are not a few such men of initiative in Madison county, one of the best known of whom is Michael S. Murray, the subject of this interesting biographical review, one of the most prominent and influential personages in this section of Ohio.

Michael S. Murray was born on a farm in Stokes township, this county, on Janu- ary 1, 1856, son of Martin and Bridget (Roddy) Murray, both natives of County Mayo, Ireland, the former of whom was born near Castlebar, the chief town of Mayo, and the latter near the town of Ballina. Martin Murray emigrated to America in 1847, locating at Springfield, this state, near which city he engaged in farming. In July 1853, Martin Murray was united in marriage to Bridget Roddy, who had come to America in 1850, locating also at Springfield. In 1854, they came to Madison county, locating on a farm near the village of Solon, in Stokes township, where they remained until the year 1860, at which time they removed to a farm near Jeffersonville, in Fayette county. In 1866, they moved to the farm in Union township, Madison county, where they lived until 1892, in which year they retired from the farm and moved into the city of London, where their last days were spent, Mrs. Murray's death occur- ring in March, 1910, and Mr. Murray dying in December, 1911. They were the parents of eleven children, seven of whom are still living; the others, besides the subject of this sketch, being John, of West Jefferson, this county; James, Martin, Mary and Margaret, of Columbus, this state, and Katherine, who is a nun in a convent in Kentucky.

Michael S. Murray was reared on the paternal farm, receiving his elementary edu- cation in the common schools of his home township, which was supplemented by a course in a select school at Springfield and at the National Normal School at Lebanon, Ohio. For several years then he taught school in this county, meantime reading law, and in 1884 was admitted to practice law at the bar of the Madison circuit court, in which year he moved to London, the county seat, which ever since has been his home. For more than twenty years Mr. Murray practiced law alone; in January, 1904, he formed his present effective and mutually agreeable partnership with P. R. Emery. From the very start Mr. Murray has occupied a prominent position at the bar of the Madison county courts and at the bars of the courts of adjacent counties, and few lawyers in this section of the state have a wider reputation than he. Vigorous, forceful, a master of the law, skilled in practice and possessed of a singularly engag- ing personality, Mr. Murray has made for himself a name to conjure with in the courts of this district and he possesses the utmost confidence and the highest respect of bench and bar alike. The firm of Murray & Emery has charge of the legal business of many important interests in Madison and adjoining counties, to all of which the most careful attention is given, among the firm's clients being the Madison National Bank and the extensive Houstonian interests.

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MICHAEL S. MURRAY.

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On November 22, 1881, Michael S. Murray was united in marriage to Anna Galla- gher, of South Charleston, Clark county, this state, to which union three children have been born, namely : Mayme, who is at home with her parents; Frank J., who is probate judge of Madison county, and John Emmet, an attorney of Chehalis, Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Murray are members of the Catholic church and their children have been reared in that faith. They are earnestly interested in the good works of their home city and are held in the highest esteem by the entire community, their many fine qualities, both of head and heart, attracting to them a large circle of very warm friends.

Mr. Murray is a Democrat and his voice for years has been an influential one in. the deliberations of the party managers of this district. He never has held office, though he was candidate, in 1908, for judge of the common pleas court of this dis- trict. Though he carried his own county and two others of the five counties in the district, he was defeated, the Republican "land slide" in the two counties that went against him being sufficient to turn the tide of popular favor against him. Mr. Murray is an active, energetic, public-spirited citizen and for many years has been regarded as one of the foremost leaders in the business and professional life of this section. He is a director in the London Exchange Bank and also holds other important con- nections, his position in business and financial circles being as firmly established as is his exalted position in legal circles.

SAMUEL S. VAN CLEVE.

One of the flourishing industries of Madison county, Ohio, is the Madison Tile Com- pany, located between the Pennsylvania and the Big Four railroad tracks in the city of London. In 1806 the firm was established as the Van Cleve Brothers. The company now owns about seventy acres of fine clay and makes tile from four to twenty-four inches in diameter, having a capacity of six hundred carloads annually and employing about twenty-five men and six teams for delivering farm drain tile. The business has been growing for many years, the output in 1914 having been the largest in the history of the business. Within recent years, the capacity has been increased on several occa- sions. This business was started in a small way, but the capital has been increased from time to time, growing to its present large proportions.

Samuel S. Van Cleve, who has had charge of this plant for some time, formerly operated a plant at Big Plain, in Madison county, and has been in the tile business in this county for twenty-five years. He had learned all of the details of manufacturing tile at the age of eighteen.

Mr. Van Cleve was born in Madison county, three miles west of London in Union township, August 15, 1866. He is the son of B. T. and Amanda Van Cleve, of Dayton, who came to Madison county in 1865, and who engaged in farming near Lilly Chapel in Fairfield township. Both died in this county.

In 1892 Samuel S. Van Cleve was married to Minnie Higgins, the daughter of Dr. C. W. Higgins, of Derby, Pickaway county, Ohio. Mrs. Van Cleve was born in Madison county. Her father was a successful physician at Big Plain for many years and one of the best-known men in this section of Ohio. He died at Derby, while engaged in the . grain business and in farming. Mr. and Mrs. Van Cleve have been the parents of two children, Jane and Charles, both of whom live at home.

C. B. Van Cleve, one of the Van Cleve brothers, has been engaged in the manufacture of tile at different places in Ohio for the past thirty years or more. He is known as one of the most successful tile men in this state. Another brother, Simpson Van Cleve, of West Mansfeld, Ohio, is engaged in the manufacture of tile at Ada. West Mansfeld and Marysville. He is one of the best-known tile manufacturers in Ohio at this time

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and it is his son, Harry, who is a member of the firm, the Madison Tile Company, at London. Still another brother, J. W. Van Cleve, is also engaged in the manufacture of tile and was in partnership with S. S. Van Cleve until his death in March, 1913, after twenty-three years continuous experience in the tile business.

The Madison Tile Company has a business which extends all over Madison county, and all over this section of Ohio. They take contracts from county commissioners and some of these contracts amount to several thousand dollars. In fact, the manufacture of tile under contract is one of the principle businesses of the Madison Tile Company.

THE ROWLAND FAMILY.

In a plot of ground a little way from Mt. Sterling, Monroe township, Pickaway county, Ohio, are the graves of three generations of distinguished men. Distinguished they were for love of country and love of liberty, a rich legacy to bequeath to their children and their children's children.

John Rowland, the first of the name in the new country, was a soldier in the War of Independence, the record of his services being on file in the archives of Mt. Sterling chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. As has been written of him: "A young man of thirty-one at the time of the birth of the republic, he helped to rock the cradle and then participated in the life of the republic through its infant struggles, its vigorous youth and its matured manhood." John Rowland came to Ohio in a wagon from the state of Delaware in 1811 and bought a farm in Monroe township, Pickaway county, where he spent the rest of his life and was buried, his death occurring on March 18. 1850, at the great age of one hundred and five years and seven months. Mary Osborne, wife of John Rowland, died on February 26, 1858, aged one hundred and three years, and is buried by his side.

Samuel Rowland, the eldest of the eight children of John and Mary (Osborne) Rowland, born on May 4, 1792, is the second soldier to be buried in the hallowed spot above referred to. He served in the War of 1812, receiving for his services a land warrant which he later sold in Circleville. About the year 1824 Samuel Rowland married Rebecca Dyer. a native of Virginia, a young woman of beauty and spirit, who came on horseback with a party of pioneers from Harper's Ferry, bringing with her her small sister and a young negro. her father having been a slaveholder. She was proud of her soldier husband and displayed for many years on the wall of their cabin his army cap. sword and musket. She died on September 2, 1872, aged eighty years and five months, and is buried in the Rowland cemetery.

The third soldier to be buried there is Samuel Rowland, Jr., third son of Samuel and Rebecca (Dyer) Rowland. While serving as first lieutenant of Company E, One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, he fell a victim of fever and died at Youngs Point. Louisiana, February 15, 1863, aged thirty-five years.

Elza Rowland. eldest son of Samuel and Rebecca Rowland, was born in Monroe township. Pickaway county. April 8, 1826. A young man of studious habits, by diligent application he acquired considerable education. being proficient especially in mathe- matics, and he readily passed the required examinations and for some years taught school. He had some knowledge of legal forms. such as agreements, leases and con- tracts, and his services were in frequent demand. As Squire Rowland, he was peace- maker and arbiter in all the neighborhood differences. and the marriage ceremony also was within his province. Being of a cheerful. genial disposition the squire was always a welcome guest at the social gatherings of his people. and the sick and the needy ever were subjects of his personal ministration. Squire Rowland was chiefly engaged in farm- ing and stock raising, his pride in this pursuit for years having led him to be an unfail-

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ing exhibitor and patron at the county fairs, which ,in an earlier time, were the great annual visiting seasons of the farmer. He bought and sold live stock, and for a number of years was perhaps the largest shipper to the Eastern markets in. Ohio. At this writing, in his eighty-ninth year, he lives in his own home in Mt. Sterling, near the home of his daughter, Mrs. J. Wesley Beale, his only surviving child .. With his great height, a family mark, and kindly dignity, he has a truly patriarchal appearance. For some years his birthdays have been occasions of general interest in the community in which, he lives surrounded by the affectionate respect of many friends and greatly beloved by the children.

On October 2, 1846, Elza Rowland was married to Mariah Jane Thomas, a beautiful girl in her eighteenth year. Of gentle birth and exquisite breeding, she graced and dignified the cabin home. Like the Rowland family, of whom they were neighbors, the Thomases were pioneers, Jane Thomas's grandparents, Jeremiah and Ellen (Norris) Thomas, having come to Ohio from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1807. Her great- grandfather, Jeremiah, a soldier in the patriot army during the War of the Revolu- tion, is buried at Harper's Ferry. His wife, Mary, came to Ohio with her family after his death and is buried in the Thomas burial ground on the banks of Clarks run not far from Mt. Sterling. The family records, which are filled with the Carnegie library at Mt. Sterling, show the family to be descended from Thomas Thomas, a native of Wales, who emigrated with his family to a plantation near Baltimore, Maryland, early in the seventeenth century. From 1651 until 1656 he was high commissioner of the provincial court. .

One hundred acres and the cabin built of logs was a marriage gift to Jane Thomas and Elza Rowland from her father and mother, John and Abigail (Van Buskirk) Thomas, and was located on a corner of their lands. Describing her early surround- ings with loving remembrance in after years, Mrs. Rowland often was wont to relate that in going back and forth to her father's house, a daily occurrence to which she confessed with smiling apology, she followed a "blazed trail" through the wilderness. The trials and hardships incident to a new country were to her but pleasant duties; so, throughout her life responsibilities were assumed and disasters met with unflinching courage. Her world was bounded by home and children, and the death of three children, grown to manhood and womanhood, overwhelmed ber with grief and shad- owed her remaining years. She died at her home in Mt. Sterling on May 29, 1905, aged seventy-five years, ten months. The family were of the faith of the Christian church and gave generously to its support. In times of bealth they were regular in attendance at the services.

Caroline, daughter of Elza and Jane (Thomas) Rowland, was born on November 26. 1848, and was educated in the public schools and the Zenia Seminary. She had a decided talent for music, and while her opportunity for study was not great, her taste and appreciation have ever been a source of pleasure to herself and her friends. Her life is the not uncommon one filled with domestic routine and her devotion to her aged father is a beautiful feature of her daily concern. It may be truly written of her, "she was her mother's daughter." On July 23, 1868, Caroline Rowland was married. at the family home on the Chillicothe road. near Mt. Sterling, to J. Wesley Beale, and lives in Mt. Sterling.

A gracious Providence was generous in her gifts to Perry C. Rowland. the eldest son of Elza and Jane (Thomas) Rowland. A man of commanding presence, of quiet reserve and dignity, he lived a life of activity amid exciting events. While claiming Ohio as his native state, the greater part of his business career was lived in Pitts- burgh, that city of eternal hurry. To have lived in those stirring times when panics and industrial strikes were the rule rather than the exception, and to have weathered

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the storm in a business fraught with many interests, required alertness, a well-balanced mind and keen insight into business conditions. Kindly and generous to a fault, Perry C. Rowland viewed life and success by what use was made of it, and many times his was the helpful hand which intervened when misfortune threatened some friend or associate. Especially was he interested in the boys and young men in the office, coun- seling them in matters relating to the value of education, in more than one instance giving them opportunity for college study when some special talent seemed to justify it. Mr. Rowland had a sincere interest and kindly supervision over the young men from "back home," who sought him in the city in pursuit of education or employment. Perry C. Rowland's business career covered a period of thirty years, in which he was engaged as a commission merchant in Ft. Wayne and in Indianapolis, Indiana, and for twenty years in the Pittsburgh-Central stockyards. It was during this latter period that he acquired lands in Ohio and became actively engaged in farming.

Perry Rowland's boyhood was spent in and around Mt. Sterling, this county, where he attended the district school, getting whatever education the opportunity offered. He entered college at Merom, Indiana, and completed the college course at Lebanon, Ohio. For a time he studied law. but financial reverses occurring in his father's affairs, he abandoned this chosen profession for a business career. He was born on June 3, 1851, near Five Points, Pickaway county, this state, and was married to May Morgridge, at Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 16, 1880. He died on October 14, 1901, at the Hotel Rider, Cambrdige Springs, Pennsylvania, and is buried in the Morgridge burial ground at Plain City, this county. His widow and two children, a daughter, Jane, and a son, Hoyt, survive him, living at "Homewood," London, this county.

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History of Madison County Ohio: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Part 79

Author: Chester E. Bryan Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1207

Author: Chester E. Bryan
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1207