History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 101

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 101

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ity was carried out. He thus gave free and speedy trans- portation for supplies that would have footed up thousands of dollars if charges had been made. It was a consolation and reward to him to know that no suffering soldier was kept out of supplies by any remissness on his part.

When the last battle was fought, before its smoke cleared away, he became conspicuous in his active, enlarged, and judicious spirit of conciliation. He at once evinced bis de- sire that all should be blotted out, and that we, who had met as hostiles, should become one in all things. He carried this out in all his conduct; he remembered in the calamities of the South the gentle offices of mercy, kindness, and benefi- cence. In these highest traits of humanity he was as active and as unceasing as he had been during the war in doing all in his power to bring about this result-the peaceful solution of a perplexing problem. In the pursuit of this object he enjoyed the esteem and confidence of the chiefs of the gov- erning authorities, and his advice was eagerly sought and usually obeyed. In this way Captain Sherley wielded an - immense influence for the welfare of his country. It was very quietly exercised, but was not, thereby, the less effective.

In the city of Louisville his judgment and management were eagerly sought, and they were in the highest degree useful in their various exercises. He was a trustee of the medical department of the University of Louisville for a number of years, and was efficient and faithful in the per- formance of the duties of this trusteeship. For a number of vears, indeed, up to the time of his death, he was a member of the board of trustees of the Kentucky Institution for Edu- cating the Blind, and of the American Printing-house for the Blind. In the duties devolving upon him in these two trusts he was remarkable for the excellence of his services. In the heating apparatus for the institution, in the alterations of the building, in the stucco work on the house, his labors were altogether invaluable; in these he has left testimonials that will be fitting monuments to his noble memory. He was for a number of years a trustee of Cave Hill cemetery. Through his active agency a number of deforming obstruc- tions were removed and graces of beauty and taste were sub- stituted for them. We never see them without awakened memories of the mind that materially aided in evoking them into monuments that supply food to the taste and delight the eye by their beauty. In all these departments of duty Captain Sherley has left conspicuous traces of himself as im- perishable as the material on which his tasteful and wise labors were expended. In all his business ways, in his management of everything, he was remarkable for the quiet and unostentatious way in which he succeeded. No braying trumpet ever attended him in his movements.

Captain Sherley was married three times. The first wife was, as we have mentioned, Mrs. Taylor, a member of the celebrated Tarascon family. The second one was Miss Clara Jewell, of Louisiana; the third, who survive him, was Miss Susan W. Cromwell, of Fayette county. A single son by each of these wives survives him. He left a large estate which he divided among these four heirs. The afflictive ill- ness which carried him off was cancer of the stomach. This deprived him of appetite, and during the last twelve months of his life he rarely felt any disposition to take any kind of food. His mind was remarkably clear, and he attended to a variety of business with an unclouded intellect. This was very conspicuous in all his affairs long after his debility drove him to bed. Indeed, this was his condition up to near about the time the cancerous tumor of the stomach ate through his duodenum. At 2:15 o'clock on the morning of February 18, 1879, his long, beautiful life closed upon earth, amid a host

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of sorrowing relatives and friends. He had become a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church some time before his death, and his hours of consciousness were, as his life had been, peaceful and calm. His funeral was attended by a multi- tude of his admirers, the Rev. Messrs. Simpson, Wilson, Humphrey and Tyler officiating. His body reposes in the beautiful cemetery of Cave Hill, which he did much to adorn and beautify.

Thus passed away from among us one of the most perfect types of manhood. He was a citizen of whom the Com- monwealth bas just reason to be proud. In all the duties of good citizenship, he took a delight in advancing the welfare of his fellow-citizens. Calm, self-possessed, thoughtful and intelligent he rarely ever made a mistake in the conception of what it was right and proper to do, and he unwaveringly walked in the pathway which his judgment approved. He was greatly beloved, and he commanded an amount of con- fidence among those who sought his advice in their troubles, and we know of many hundreds of this kind that never was misplaced. It is incredible what multitudes of such cases went to him for guidance, and how calmly and cheerfully he aided and befriended them. He had a great number of rel- atives to whom his beneficence and kindness were unceasing. As a son, a brother, a husband, and a father, he was a great exemplar. In his friendships he was rarely ever equalled; if he had any enmities, he kept them concealed. There was one feature of his mental equipment in which he was prob- ably never excelled. A distinguished member of the Na- tional government, one of the most distinguished of his con- temporaries, who was very intimate with Captain Sherley, said his vein of what is called common sense excelled that of any man he had ever known; his capacity to penetrate to the very heart the most perplexing and intricate of the problems of human life, and return from the work with every difficulty cleared up, and rendered easy and plain. In this respect he said he never knew him to fail; that in many of these diffi- cnIties that came up in his public work, he felt that when he had Captain Sherley at his side he had a tower of strength which he would have looked for in vain elsewhere. We have seen him in many of these troublesome difficulties, and have often been surprised at the perfectness of his work in cutting his way successfully through every bewilderment. No tem- pest-tossed mariner in a dark and murky night ever watched for rifts in the clouds that might reveal a glimmering of light, than we often watched in like circumstances for Captain Sherley; we felt that he was our polestar who would infallibly lead us out of perplexity and bewilderment into paths of security and safety.

Upon the occasion of his death, the various and numerous bodies of citizens with which he had long been connected in the transaction of public affairs, met and took action upon the great bereavement they had experienced, and expressed their sense of the great loss they had experienced in his death.

REV. STUART ROBINSON, D. D.,

one of the ablest and most famous of Kentucky divines, was born in the north of Ireland, at Strabane, on the river Foyle, in county Tyrone, November 14, 1814, and died in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, October 5, 1881, aged nearly sixty- seven. His father, James Robinson, was a linen merchant of high standing and character in his native town, Strabane; his mother, Martha Porter, was the daughter of a Scotchman who settled in Ireland, where he became a ruling elder in a

Scotch-Irish Presbyterian church, of which his father had been or was the minister. Of seven children, six sons and a daughter, Stuart was the fifth. Although Irish born, and Scotch-Irish by close descent, he soon became American by adoption; for before he was a year old, suretyship-that cruelest of all financial misfortunes-and to which was super- added some misconduct of his business partner, snatched from his father the accumulations of years and the good credit so dear to every merchant of integrity.

It is generally accounted easier to stem the tide of such disasters in a new sea than at home, and so Mr. Robinson transferred his young family to an emigrant ship which landed him in New York city. There he struggled against hope for some two years, then drifted to the South and settled in Berkeley county, Virginia, a few miles west of Harper's Ferry, and in or near the county seat, Martinsburg, then a small village. Here, about four years after, the mother died -that best and truest and most needed friend of boys with brains and pluck-and the father married again. But the mother, already daughterless, had lived Jong enough to im- press her piety, force and energy of character upon her lads, ranging in age from sixteen down to little Stuart, of only six or seven. She had taught him to read, and made him famil- iar with portions of the catechism. He was quick-witted and ready beyond his years, full of humor, yet thoughtful, and prompt to obey; this very readiness soon stood him in hand, young as he was.

All who ever heard of Dr. Robinson in the pulpit in after years-when he was a power in the church, bold in advocat- ing the right and still bolder in denouncing error and con- demning the wrong-must have been struck with a peculiar- ity of gesture which savored slightly of personal deformity. One arm seemed unnaturally short and stiff, and a vigorous gesture with that arm caused a noticeable curving of the head and shoulders. Then, too, in taking a drink, he was compelled with one hand to lift or guide to his month the other hand which held the cup or glass. This serions physi- cal infirmity, which never failed to enlist the sympathy of his hearers, was the result of an accident in infancy in freland.

When only eight months old, his nurse was tossing him playfully over her shoulders, when he slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor, dislocating his right shoulder and seriously injuring his hand, thumb, and head -the latter so greatly as to cause strong apprehensions of idiocy for life. " His head soon recovered, and grew, as he matured, to be unusually large, and well formed, carrying a. full, massive brain, and was strikingly attractive in all its features. His arm and hand were disabled for life; his arm, especially, was ever after weak and stiff." This same arm was broken a second time, some forty years afterwards, about 1855, by a railroad accident when traveling westward on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. He had it bandaged temporarily, and would not stop to have it set by strangers, but waited until he arrived among friends at Lexington, Kentucky. In time it regained its former strength and flexibility. " This was the rigid, the shattered and enieebled right arm and hand with which he held, and often painfully moved, the pen that gave to his generation and the world his written thoughts- thoughts that are embodied in his published letters, speeches, lectures, sermons, and books; and other thoughts sufficient to fill two or three additional volumes, carefully studied, and well-nigh ready for the press, at the beginning of his last sickness."

Not long after the mother's death the boys were scattered; the oldest running off, reached Louisiana, and in time be- came a wealthy planter; the fourth afterwards followed him,

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

and also became a planter. The semi-cripple, then less than seven, was placed with an old German farmer named Trout- man, a member of the same Presbyterian church where the now sainted mother had worked, and taught, and prayed in faith, leaving results to God. The farmer started him to school, and in two days he mastered his reader. The teacher, shrewd forecaster as he was, thus alighting upon the most singular incident in all his experience with the very young, wrote in the back of his book, " This is a wonderful child, and will some day make his mark in the world!" Thus six years past; the lad planted corn, and ran errands, and fed the stock, and helped in all the farm work which he had strength and size for-going to school in the winter, and giv- ing evidence of genius and quickness in every new study and at each fresh opportunity.

When he was thirteen the good farmer and his wife-im- pressed with thoughts of a great future for the motherless boy who was too much of a cripple to become a superior farm- hand, and yet too smart for their own practical little world -carried their noble-hearted trouble to their minister, Rev. James M. Brown, and asked him what was best to be done for one they called "the smartest boy in the world." That young minister, in all his long and useful life, never did a grander work for the Master than when he took to his own home that promising lad, and took charge of his personal training. Before he was eighteen he sent him to Amherst college, Massachusetts, where he graduated with high honor in 1836-in a class now renowned for its great men; among them Governor Bullock, Rev. Dr. Allen, Rev. Russell D. Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., and others. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, Rev. Edward P. Humphrey, D. D., LL. D., of Louisville, and Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer, D. D., of New Orleans, were among his college-mates. Few in- stitutions of learning have had under training at one time such a bevy of great men.

After spending two years at Union Theological seminary at Virginia, Mr. Robinson taught school for several years at Charlestown, West Virginia, paid back the money previously advanced to aid him in his theological course, and saved enough to take another year in Princeton Theological semi- nary, 1840 -- I. So, while a college student in Massachusetts, he had taught school during all his vacations, and thus de- frayed the expense of his education.

In 1841 he entered the ministry of the Presbyterian church, and was installed pastor of the little church at Malden, six miles above Charlestown, where he labored for six years-do- ing full duty as a pastor, and also as a missionary in the neighboring country along Kanawha river, besides giving especial attention to the business interests of his mother-in- law, for he was now married. Thence he was called, for nine months in 1846, to fill the pulpit of the Second Presby- terian church in Louisville, during the absence of its pastor, Rev. Dr. Edward P. Humphrey, in Europe. This was his introduction to Kentucky, whose people never after volun- tarily gave him up. In 1847 to 1854 he was. pastor of the Presbyterian church at Frankfort, Kentucky, and besides great labor as pastor, found time to act as president of a female seminary, president of a cotton factory, president of a turnpike road company, built mainly through his efforts, and one of the directors of the Farmers' Bank of Kentucky, with its seven branches and $2,200,000 capital. Few men had the physical endurance and business wisdom to accomplish what he did-and this, too, in addition to the full work of a very laborious and faithful ministry ! No wonder he became a rich man ; and that, by his own shrewdness and economy and wise investments, and not by the help or use of others,

wealth as has usually been supposed. He was always giv- ing, and always helping others; and yet was blessed and prospered, left his family in wealthy circumstances, and made large bequests to the church and for various benevolent pur- poses. He illustrated the proverb of Solomon, wisest of men, "The hand of the diligent maketh rich."

In 1854 he was called to the Duncan Presbyterian church in Baltimore, Maryland, out of which he built the Central Presbyterian church. There, besides the care of a rapidly growing congregation, he originated and mainly edited for two years, 1855 -- 56, the Presbyterian and Critic, a very able bi-monthly, leading, outspoken, and to some extent contro- versial. This was discontinued only when, under an elec- tion by the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in the United States to the chair of church government and pastoral theology in the Theological seminary at Danville, Kentucky, he deemed its editorship not altogether consistent with his new relation to the church. This new post of duty he filled with distinguished ability for two years, 1856 -- 58; then resigned and removed to Louisville, where he could give proper attention to a business interest which, in the control of others some four hundred miles distant, had largely in- volved him pecuniarily. The trustees and friends of the seminary protested against his resignation, and tendered such leave of absence as might be needed. But he took the high ground that no minister of the gospel could be useful as such, and preserve the entire confidence of his people and of the world around him, who did not hold himself amenable promptly to the strictest rules of mercantile integrity in all business transactions. In Louisville he became pastor of the Second Presbyterian church, salary $3,000; and besides, taught a select school of forty boys, for $4,000 per year-to keep down the interest on a large debt he was compelled to assume; while he so judiciously managed and supervised the assets and operations as to ultimately discharge all the obli- gations so unexpectedly cast upon him.

The relation of pastor thus formed under rather discourag- ing circumstances, continued from 1858 to June, 1881, twenty-three years, when, on account of ill health he resign- ed his charge. When his people could no longer prevail upon him to hold it, they elected him Pastor Emeritus, the first instance in which this has been done in the Southern church.

Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, conferred upon him the degree of D. D., when he was thirty-eight years old, and at forty-three, the greatest representative Presbyterian church court in the United States elected him professor in an im- portant theological seminary.

Dr. Robinson did not publish much in a form for perma- nant preservation. In 1858, was issued his first great work, The Church of God as an Essential Element of the Gospel, and the Idea, Structure and Functions thereof, which soon reached a second edition, much enlarged. While he was a temporary resident of Canada, during and after the Civil war, from 1862 to 1866, he prepared for the press a volume of sermons entitled Discourses of Redemption, which was first published in Canada, but has been reprinted in several editions in the United States and Scotland. He has published several smaller works, and some pamphlets of a contro- versial character.

In 1861, he began at Louisville the publication of a relig- jous weekly, the "True Presbyterian," which was twice suppressed by the military, in July, 1862, and again in November, 1864. This was a result of private and person- al bitterness, and not because of political utterances. He himself was arrested by the military, when about to enter his

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church to preach, one Sunday night in 1862, and was taken to beadquarters and there promptly released until next morning ; but neither then, nor afterwards, could he obtain from the commanding officer or any other source any state- ment of the charge preferred, or even ascertain that any were preferred. He returned to his church on being released and preached; but not long after, while in Cincinnati on busi- ness, a friend telegraphed him that another order was out for his arrest, whereupon, to avoid the repetition of such annoy- ances, he took the railroad to Canada, and remained there nearly four years in voluntary exile. While there, some of the ablest and most acceptable preaching of his life was done, the theological students of Toronto and the leading profes- sional men frequently going in a body to hear him.

In 1873 Dr. Robinson visited Europe, extending his trip to Egypt and Palestine. On his return he lectured repeatedly to crowded houses in various cities, upon these travels --- always for benevolent or church objects, never for private re- ward. He twice attended the Pan-Presbyterian council or convention-taking part in its organization in 1875, in Lon- don, and in 1877 being a delegate at Edinburg, from the Presbyterian church in the South. On every occasion in which he was brought in contact with the great men and great minds of the church and state, in England, Scotland, on the continent of Enrope, or at home, he was a man among men, and always a power for good.

t In Toronto, Canada, and in New York city and Baltimore, repeated propositions to build a church for him were made, to induce him to settle there. But his love for Kentucky, and his faith in the friends of his riper years, nipped in the bud all such temptations. The church that he loved honored him with its best and highest positions, from the day of his first pastorate with a salary of only $150 per year, up to the moderatorship of the Presbyterian general assembly at Mo- bile, in May, 1869; and he was content. The writer of this has attended a number of, and been somewhat familiar with, the highest church courts in the United States; and he does not remember any man who more uniformly had the ear of those bodies and wielded in them a large influence more unmistakably than Dr. Robinson. He was a tower of strength there, always.

A writer in one of the religions journals, who had good opportunity to know Dr. Robinson, said of him, in 1871:

"The secret of his power is his directness, simplicity, scripturalness, and intense conviction of truth. Of course, these traits are mingled with genins, learning, and great industry. Dr. Ben. M. Palmer, of New Orleans, excels him in word painting; Dr. Moses D. Hoge, of Richmond, in poetic temperament and power of pathos; Dr. Samuel R. Wilson, of Louisville, as a compact and wary debater in ecclesiastical courts; Dr. Robert L. Dabney, of Virginia, in exactness of information upon a limited number of subjects; Henry Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, in melody and compass of voice; but in breadth and versatility of character and genius, the American pulpit has no superior. Were he set- tled in London or Edinburg, his congregations would be equal to those of the most celebrated men." As proof of this last claim, it will be remembered that his address at the second meeting of the Pan-Presbyterian council in Edinburg, Scotland, in 1877, on the "Venerableness of Presbyterian- ism," drew forth the wildest applause from that staid but great and venerable body.

In September, 1841, Dr. Robinson was married to Miss Mary E. Brigham, eldest daughter of Colonel William Brig- ham, of Charlestown, West Virginia, but a native of Massa- «husetts; her grandfather was James Bream, from England.

She survives him. Of their eight children, five died when very young. Their only son, Lawrence, died of consump- tion, at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1869, just as he reached man's estate. Two daughters are living (May, 1882)-the younger, Miss Lizzie Robinson; the elder is the wife of Col- onel Bennett H. Young, one of the most prominent and suc- cessful of the lawyers and business men of Louisville. They have four children, under fourteen, two daughters and two sons.

CAPTAIN BASIL PRATHER,

one of the earliest settlers of Jefferson county, was born about 1740 in Maryland. He came of the large family of Prathers of English extraction residing in Maryland and Virginia. He embraced a military life, and when the troubles between the colonies and the mother country arose he took the side of the patriots, and served as a captain throughout the war, declining any pay for his services. After the war he married Miss Fanny Merriwether, of the Kentucky and Virginia families of that name, a lady much younger than himself, with whom he resided happily in easy fortune, and indeed opulence for that early time, upon a large and fertile farm which he purchased in the Beargrass district just above the city of Louisville. He first met his wife at a ball at the fort which was then situated at the old town of Jefferson- ville, Indiana. He died about 1803, much regretted, for he was a man of a warm, impulsive and affectionate nature, and of commanding character and ability. He was exceedingly handsome, six feet three inches tall, and finally proportioned, almost the ideal soldier. His manners were cordial and en- gaging, and he exercised a widely known hospitality and lent a helping hand to the poor; and, as Thackeray's Esmond says of the Duke of Hamilton, "his courage was like his charity and never turned any man away."

Of the five children born to him three survived to mature life -- Mary M., Thomas, and Martha M .- married and left descendants, some of whom settled in Jefferson county and Louisville and some in Fulton county in the southern part of the State, where the ancestor had bought land when he first came to Kentucky. A younger half-brother of Captain Basil Prather was Thomas Prather, the successful Louisville mer- chant, trom whom Broadway or Prather street was named, and who has numerous descendants in Louisville.

JUDGE ISAAC MILLER.

Judge Isaac Miller, the progenitor of the Miller family, re- siding south of Louisville, was the third son of Warwick Miller, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and came of a fam- ily which immigrated from Wales at the time of the coming of Penn's colony. He descended from a vigorous stock, which bore a name without reproach, derived from genera- tions of honesty, integrity, and honor. And, indeed, he was a very prince in bearing, and kingly in the native dignity of his unaffected manners. He suggested Macauley's description of Bradshaw, the judge of Charles 1. -as one fit to sit in judgment on a king. And in his kindli- ness and power he resembled Job in the days of his prosper- ity when the candle of the Lord still shone on his tabernacle. He made the poor and the solitary comfortable, and he made the widow's heart to sing for joy. He was of majestic pres- ence, being nearly six feet in height, corpulent, erect, and

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 101

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814