USA > Ohio > History of the Upper Ohio Valley, with family history and biographical sketches, a statement of its resources, industrial growth and commercial advantages, Vol. I > Part 30
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* By Hon. George W. Atkinson.
16-A.
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pulpit, merchants and tradesmen timid in their business, and politi- cians timid and time-serving in their utterances. To be in accord with Richmond, with the pro-slavery press there, with the growing demands of the south in general for more slave territory, was the correct thing in politics and social life, and ambitious lawyers, editors and public men bowed their heads and knees at this shrine. Wheel- ing and Ohio counties had then not more than 100 slaves. This is the number given by the census of 1860. And yet the governing tone - in politics and in society was but an echo of Richmond and old Vir- ginia. In the year in which the Intelligencer began its career as the advocate of the right of all men to express and vote their political sentiments, the circuit judge of the Wheeling district charged a grand jury (in effect) that republicans were suspicious persons and obnox- ious to the laws and institutions of Virginia. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, was deterred from delivering a con- servative lecture in Wheeling on the issues of the day, because simply of incidental references in his address to the slavery question. A Baptist minister of culture and high character left the city under the ban of this proscriptive opinion, because he taught colored children to read in his Sunday-school. The circuit court of Harrison county issued a menacing edict against the reading of the New York Tribune, and the club agent of that paper fled the state to escape indictment and imprisonment. Partisan postmasters, subservient to the Rich- mond despotism, withheld such papers as the New York Christian Advocate from their subscribers and were not rebuked by their su- periors at Washington. A valuable statistical book written by a na- tive of North Carolina, which discussed the economic phases of · slavery, had to be read by stealth in Wheeling, and news-dealers were afraid to keep it on their shelves. They were threatened with indict- ment in the courts. Republican meetings were broken up by mobs and their processions stoned in the streets. They had no adequate police protection. Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, was threatened with personal violence for coming to deliver an address in Wheeling that he had delivered in the heart of his own state, and the directors of the hall in which he was to speak deliberated whether it would be safe to open their doors to this eminent citizen.
These were the days and these the auspices under which Mr. Camp- bell began his career as the editor of the only republican daily paper in all the then vast area of Virginia. A stout heart might well have quailed over the prospect. Almost from the start the Intelligencer was the constant target of the pro-slavery press of the state. The Rich- mond press reproached Wheeling because such a publication was per- mitted to exist in her midst, and between these reproaches and the objurgations of influential persons and papers at home, it looked as if the fate of the enterprise was uncertain indeed. But the paper lived, although in a precarious way for a time, and pursued such a fair, firm and conservative course that it gradually gained in influence and circulation, and when the great and exciting presidential canvass of 1860 opened it was fairly able to stand alone. Mr. Campbell went
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as a delegate from Virginia to the convention that nominated Abra- ham Lincoln for president, and returning home gave his candidacy an enthusiastic support. Wheeling was the scene of many excite- ments that year. There was no telling what a day would bring forth in the way of violence. Eight hundred republican votes were polled in the county-mostly in the city of course-and these among the workmen in the iron mills. About 3,000 votes were polled in the state. These were the nucleus of the Union organization that at a later day rallied to the defense of the nation, and the salvation of West Vir- ginia from secession. The local republican speakers of that day were Mr. Campbell, Alfred Caldwell and E. M. Norton. They discussed the discriminations in favor of slavery, in the matter of taxation and the basis of representation in the legislature, and these were strong points that arrested public attention and made a decided popular im- pression. Gov. Pierpont, although a Bell and Everett elector, dis- cussed these issues from the same standpoint, and virtually made republican speeches. Public documents were issued and sent out among the people showing how West Virginia was subordinated and injured in all her interests by eastern Virginia, and gradually the way was prepared for the new state movement that assumed practical shape at the very outset of the war-just as Daniel Webster predicted in 1851 would be the case in the event that Virginia ever allied herself with secession. The history of the Intelligencer during the war is the history of the Union and the new state cause. They will all remain one and inseparable in the annals of West Virginia. In all those years no one threw himself more earnestly, ably and untiringly into the sup- port of both than Mr. Campbell. Pres. Lincoln told Gov. Pierpont that it was a dispatch penned by Mr. Campbell that determined him to sign the bill (against the wishes of a part of his cabinet) that ad- mitted West Virginia into the Union as a state. The Intelligencer was the right arm of the "Restored Government" of Virginia, and Mr. Campbell was the trusted counsellor and supporter of the Union au -. thorities both in civil and military matters. When the new state con- stitution was being framed he protested against the clause recognizing slavery, and predicted that congress would never consent to the for- mation of a second slave state out of the territory of Virginia, a pre- diction that was verified to the letter. The constitution had to come back for amendment, and West Virginia was finally admitted as a free state. After the war the great problem of the political rehabilitation of the state had to be met. There was an intense feeling among the rank and file of the Union element in favor of restricting the suffrage. All who had aided or abetted the rebellion were regarded as public enemies, dangerous to the results of the war and the public peace of society, and therefore not to be trusted with the ballot. Mr. Camp- bell was forced to dissent from this view of many Union men. He believed that such a policy would make an Ireland out of the state, produce endless discord and work to the infinite injury of all the material interests of the commonwealth. He, therefore, prepared the celebrated "let up" address (as it was called) to the Union people of
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West Virginia, which was influentially signed, in which these views were strongly discussed, and although there was wide-spread dissent on the part of many leading Union people, and some bitter criticisms at the moment, yet the sober second thought of the people endorsed the position thus taken, and at a later day it became, in suh ice, an amendment to our state constitution and as such was adopted by the people.
Mr. Campbell, although an original and unswerving republican, has not hesitated when the occasion arose to thus differ from his party. He differed from them on the policy of the Greenback alliance and held that sound ideas on the currency of the government was a mat- ter of such vital moment to the public welfare that the party could not afford to temporize for the sake of any campaign advantages. He differed from a large and influential element of the party on the issue of the third term in the Grant movement of 1880, a difference that re- sulted in the memorable denouement in the Chicago convention of that year that is supposed to have paved the way to Garfield's nomin- ation for president. In that convention Senator Roscoe Conkling, who was the leader of the third term movement, sought by the intro- duction of a resolution before the balloting begun, to commit the delegates in advance to a support of the nominee, whoever he might be. Mr. Campbell, in an able and vigorous speech, opposed such un- precedented action. Senator Conkling promptly offered a resolution proposing to expel Mr. Campbell from his position as a delegate in the convention. Mr. Campbell obtained the floor and most ably de- fended the position he had conscientiously taken, and among other things gave utterance to the remark, which gave him a national repu- tation as a man of unusual courage and ability, viz .: "Whether in or out of this convention, I carry my sovereignty under my own hat." Mr. Conkling's resolution did not prevail. Upon Mr. Campbell's re- turn to Wheeling a public mass meeting was held in the opera house, elaborate addresses indorsing his conduct in the convention were made, and he was publicly presented with a large oil painting repre- senting the scene alluded to in the Chicago convention. Mr. Camp- bell with all his prominence in the public affairs of West Virginia for a generation has never been a politician. He has left the manipula- tion of conventions and nominations to others. He had no taste whatever in that direction, preferring to discuss public measures in his paper and on the hustings. He has been largely voted for time and again for the United States senate, and there is no doubt had he so chosen he could have effected his own election. But this he always declined to do, and because he did not no one ever heard him repine over the result, or saw him falter in his usual political course. His name was urged by his friends for a position in President Garfield's cabinet. His endorsements were extensive, and came from the lead- ing republicans from nearly every portion of the Republic.
Of late years he has given more attention to business interests than to politics. He has been connected for many years with iron and steel manufacture, as president and director of one of the large works,
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, but has always been ready to take up his pen or go before the people in advocacy of republican principles. He was one of the three com- missioners on the part of West Virginia to adjust the debt question with Virginia, and was charged with the duty of preparing a large part of the able report upon that question. He has from time to time de- livered addresses on various subjects of public interest, and in 1887 prepared an interesting historical resume of the events, civil and po- litical, that led to the formation of the state, at the request of the So- ciety of the Army of West Virginia.
His familiarity with all matters relative to the tariff caused him to be sent to Washington as the representative of the Ohio Valley Steel association before the Ways and Means committee of congress. But few Americans have studied the varied phases of political econ- omy as deeply and with the same amount of care and research that Mr. Campbell has given to them. He seems to know the history of the great tariff question from A to Z. The writer has heard him make a large number of public speeches upon that subject, and it was a rare thing for him to repeat himself. Each address seemed to be a presentation of some new feature of the matter that he had not formerly considered. He appeared to have stored away in his memory a fund of information that was illimitable, and like a great spool, unraveled at his will. It was said of his uncle, the great Bishop Alexander Campbell, that his mind was like a sponge-it absorbed everything with which it came in contact. This is true to a very great extent of the subject of this sketch. He is an industrious stu- dent, and possesses the power to retain what he reads. His thorough knowledge of the great economic questions of the country, and his well-known fitness for the place, caused his friends to present his name to President Harrison for the vacancy on the Inter-state Com- merce commission. The most prominent men in the nation, repre- senting upwards of three-fourths of the states of the Union, and embracing both of the leading political parties, urged the president to appoint him a member of that commission. The president ad- mitted Mr. Campbell's general qualifications for the position, but was of the opinion that some active and experienced jurist should be chosen, and accordingly appointed Judge Veasy, of Vermont. The numerous testimonials forwarded to the president in Mr. Campbell's behalf, show the high esteem in which he is held by the leading men of the country. Mr. Campbell's individuality is impressed upon al- most every page of West Virginia's first twenty years of history. With voice and pen he was heard and felt, and largely followed, dur- ing the years of our statehood. Scholarly, and at the same time possessed of a deliberate judgment rarely found in men, he was heard and heeded by his less endowed fellow citizens. No man in all our bor- ders is better known; and no man is abler and none more highly re- spected. Mr. Campbell was for a number of years chairman of the state republican committee, and the West Virginia member of the republican national committee, and in 1868 and again in ISSo he was the repub- lican nominee for elector-at-large. For several years past he has
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been an extensive traveler, and has visited almost every part of the United States, and written extensively for the press upon the vast resources of our country.
Peter Cassell, a prominent citizen of Wheeling, who has been ac- tively associated with the manufactures of the city and its vicinity, is now retired from business, though still largely interested in various enterprises. Mr. Cassell was born near Millville, N. J., June 26, 1830, the son of Levi and Martha (Watson) Cassell, of German and En- glish descent respectively, who settled in what is now Ohio county, W. Va., in 1837. They made their home at West Union, where the father, who was a blacksmith by trade, was engaged at the same un- til his death in 1840. He left a family of five children: Joseph, Peter, Nathaniel, Levi and Mary A., wife of John D. Jones. Peter Cassell was reared from his seventh year in Ohio county, received the ad- vantage of a very limited education. At an early age he went upon the river as an employe on a passenger boat, in which occupation he was engaged three years. Subsequently he learned the trade of glass blowing, and after a service of seven years he took charge of a press in the works of Barnes & Hobbs, where he was en- gaged at his trade until 1871. He was one of the original projectors of the Central Glass company, which was established in 1863, and made a stock company in 1867, and since then he has been a director. He is also a stockholder in the Bellaire Iron works, the Belmont Nail company, and Ætna and Mingo Junction Iron works, and is a stock- holder and director in the Nickle Plate Glass works at Fostoria, Ohio. Mr. Cassell has been a resident of Wheeling since 1841, and in his many years of residence here has gained the respect and esteem of the community. In 1862 he was married to Elizabeth J., daughter of John and Mary (Conley) Henderson, of Wheeling, by whom he had four children, of whom three are living: William H., Virginia, wife of Frank H. Stamm, and Levi. Mr. Cassell is a member of the First Presbyterian church.
Charles Cecil, who was born at Pittsburgh, was one of the promi- nent early merchants of Wheeling. He came of one of the leading families of Pittsburgh, and he was married to a member of a well- known family at Wheeling, Naomi Eoff. To this union four children were born, Charles B., deceased; Mary M., Alexander J. and Eliza J. The father and mother are both deceased. Alexander J. Cecil, now prominently identified with the manufacturing interests of Wheeling, as president of the Centre foundry, was born at that city, January 20, 1831. His first business experience was as a clerk for three years in the store of Bass & Robinson, and at the expiration of that employ- ment he formed a partnership with his brother, and they embarked in the boot and shoe trade, and continued in the same for eight years. They then, in 1855, bought the foundry of J. & H. A. Baggs, which they operated for ten years under the business style of Cecil Broth- ers. The brother then retired, and Edwin Hobbs and J. R. McCourt- ney became the partners of Mr. Cecil, forming the firm of Cecil, Hobbs & Co., which continued the business for ten years longer. In
OHIO COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 247
1875, the Centre foundry company was incorporated, and Mr. Cecil retired from the enterprise, but only temporarily it proved, as in 1881 he again purchased an interest in the company, and re-organizing the same, was chosen president, a position he still holds. These works occupy a building 60x120, of three stories, and employ thirty or more employes in the manufacture of machinery, particularly the Wheel- ing nail machines, of wide fame and popularity. Their manufactures are of such extent that they are prepared to furnish the entire mechanical equipments of nail factories, rolling mills and potteries. Mr. Cecil is interested in other enterprises, notably the Warwick China company. He has taken an intelligent interest in municipal affairs, and has served on the city council one term. Mr. Cecil mar- ried Cornelia, daughter of the late Morgan Nelson, and they have three children, of whom two are living. One of these, Morgan N., is now secretary of the Warwick China company.
W. H. Chapman, member of the well-known firm of Wilson & Chap- man, wholesale dealers in painters' and builders' supplies, was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, on January 24, 1838. His father was Aaron Chapman, a native of New Jersey, and his mother was Comfort Shu- mar, a native of West Virginia. Aaron Chapman was one of the early settlers of Jefferson county, Ohio, going there between 1828 and 1830. He was a carpenter and contractor. He erected a frame resi- dence for himself in Tiltonville, in 1834, which house still stands, and in which all of his children save three were born. The mother died in 1884, at the age of seventy-six years, and the father died in Sep- tember, 1889, at the age of eighty-six years. To the parents ten child- ren were born, seven of whom survive. W. H. Chapinan was reared in Jefferson county, and educated in the public schools. He began learning the chair making trade in Warrenton, Ohio, in 1852, and came to Wheeling in 1855 and finished his trade. He worked at the trade until the breaking out of the rebellion, when, on September 21, 1861, he enlisted in Company C, First Virginia infantry, Col. Joseph Thoburn's regiment, and served three years; then re-enlisted and served a year, and was mustered out in August, 1865. He entered the army as a private, was then made corporal, then commisary ser- geant, and served as such until the end of three years' enlistment, and after re-enlisting was commissioned first lieutenant of Company B, of Second Veteran regulars, and assigned to duty as acting regimental quartermaster until mustered out. He returned to Wheeling after the war, and was engaged in the retail grocery business for a while, and then went into the sewing machine business, representing the Florence Machine company. He next engaged in the grocery busi- ness, and then effected a partnership with Hanes, Wilson & Co., with which firm he remained through its various changes until the present, part of the time as salesman, part of the time manager, and in 1884 was made a partner in the concern. He is a member of I. O. O. F., Lodge No. 40, also of the Wheeling Encampment. He is a charter member of Lodge No. 12, Alpha lodge 424, K. of H., is also a member of the National Union, and belongs to the Holliday
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Post, G. A. R. He was married December 26, 1859, to Vir- ginia E. Phillips, who was born in Wheeling. To them eight children have been born, of whom seven survive.
Hon. Robert Henry Cochran .- Of the many men of distinction whose lives are drawn upon in this publication for the purpose of por- traying to future generations something of the character of those who, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, were accorded by general consent the credit of standing foremost in devotion to the public weal, there is none more deservedly conspicuous than the gentleman whose name forms the caption to this brief sketch. Of a modest and un- pretentious parentage of the highest respectability, Robert Henry Cochran was born in Belmont county, Ohio, near Wheeling, Va., May 25, 1836. His primary education, acquired at the common schools of his neighborhood, was materially augmented by one term at a select school and two terms at a small college located at Rich- mond, Ohio, and by a full course at Duff's Commercial college, Pitts- burgh, from which latter institution he was graduated in 1859. After leaving college he alternated the summer and winter seasons by farming and by teaching the district schools, and night classes in book-keeping, and in 1857 at St. Clairsville, Ohio, began and thence pursued, with his other work, the study of law. In March, 1860, at Columbus, Ohio, he was admitted to the bar before the state supreme court, and from that to the present time the legal fraternity has claimed him as one of its most honorable and worthy members. He located first in the practice of his chosen profession at Martin's Ferry; moving thence to St. Clairsville in 1864 to assume the duties of prosecuting attorney, and thence in April, 1869, moved to Wheeling, W. Va., and united for three years in a law-partnership with the Hon. Daniel Peck. Here he at once identified himself with the best interests of his adopted city and state. His sound legal ability was speedily recognized and his public spiritedness became a proverb. In fact it may be truthfully said, that although his life in Ohio was by no means inactive or unimportant, it is as a citizen of West Virginia that his greatest energies have been expended and his grandest successes consummated. In 1871 he was appointed general counsel (and soon afterward secretary) of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railroad com- pany. At the end of about seven years' service in various official capacities with this company, he was, in May, 1880, made its manag- ing director, and a year later again became its general counsel. The former office he held until December, 1881, and the latter until Feb- ruary, 1883. During this period, and directly under his management and influence, the road was completed from Toledo and Huron to Valley Junction (about 185 miles) and began to assume for the first time in its history, some importance as a medium of transportation. While yet connected with the W. & L. E. Co.,- and he was, during a portion of the period above indicated, its president -- he organized the Wheeling & Harrisburg railway company, and became its chief executive officer, a position he yet holds as president of the same company, now known as the Wheeling Bridge & Terminal railroad
Engªby F. G Kernan, N.Y.
Киратерми R.H. Cochran
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company .* Judge Cochran, in addition to his many other industries, is now vice president of the Cleveland & Wheeling railroad com- pany. He was the chief organizer of this company, then the South Pennsylvania & Ohio railroad company, and for several years the president. In connection with Judge Cochran's railroad career, it is but justice to him and his friends to state that in the organization and promotion of substantial railroad projects in the upper Ohio valley, he has been more prominent and conspicuous than any other one citizen who ever resided in Wheeling. He has been instrumental in plan- ning and advancing more important and beneficial movements in this direction than the public is probably aware of, and that, too, at times and under adverse circumstances when he seemed to be stand- ing alone and unaided. For nearly twenty years Judge Cochran has devoted his best energies in effort to promote the railroad interest of Wheeling, and to put her on new lines east and west, north and south. By a special act of legislation he was an incorporator, and in 1872, on its organization, was made secretary of the Wheeling & Ohio Union railroad company, designed to bridge the river at Wheeling, and by a popular vote of the city of Wheeling and Ohio county, $700,000 were authorized to be subscribed to this company and to the Wheeling & Lake Erie R. R. Co., but this was nulified by a constitu- tional amendment subsequently adopted and by an injunction. Later he was active in organizing, and became secretary of the Wheeling & Parkersburg R. R. Co., out of which initial efforts finally came the Ohio River R. R. Co. He was also active in promoting the build- ing of the Valley Railway, now running from Cleveland to Valley Junction, and pointing toward Wheeling, and has devoted much effort to secure to Wheeling the Cleveland & Canton R. R., now running from Cleveland through Canton to Sherrodsville, Ohio, forty-five miles from Wheeling. Though the panic in 1873, and many subse- quent reverses came, he tenaciously and without any local financial aid adhered to his purpose, and when the W. & L. E. R. R. Co. aban- doned their line from Bowerstown to Wheeling, and their right to bridge the Ohio river at Wheeling, he took these lines up independently, organized new companies or revived old ones to build them, and to this work he for years devoted his entire time, and there is now bright promise that in a short time all these lines will come directly into the city of Wheeling. He is by common consent awarded the distinction of having done more than any other man to secure railroad facilities to his adopted city, and the people of that city and county, in 1888, at a special election, manifested their confidence in him by almost unanimously voting to his bridge company a subscription of $300,000.
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