USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > History of the city of Cleveland : its settlement, rise and progress > Part 21
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Hon. Richard C. Parsons was born in Connecticut in 1826, and is descended from educated New England an- cestry. Mr. Parsons was so early drawn into political life that his career has been a long and brilliant one. He has always been more or less interested in journalism through the Herald and Leader, and has contributed much valuable matter to the press. He is an eloquent and pol- ished speaker, and a fine writer. His letters from Europe, particularly those historical and descriptive of Rome, and, very recently, from the shores of the Bosporus, reveal a high power to use the English smoothly and melodiously in vivid pictures and graphic narrative.
Hon. John C. Covert was born in Norwich, Chenango county, New York, February 11, 1839. His journalistic career commenced in 1849, when he entered the printing
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office of Smead & Cowles, where he worked three years, and, later, one year in the office of a campaign daily called the Forest City. After obtaining an education in the most laborious and persistent manner, he studied law and was admitted to the St. Louis bar in 1859. When the war broke out, his night and day struggle had made such inroads upon his constitution that he was rejected when he offered himself for enlistment. He accordingly started to Europe for the benefit of body and mind, walked all over France, acquired a good knowledge of the French, German, Spanish and Italian languages, and returned in 1868, after a seven years' tour, recuperated in health. He commenced work upon the Leader as reporter, and has filled all the positions from reporter to managing editor, at which he now rests. His address in favor of taxing church property, delivered while a member of the Legisla- ture, has been published in pamphlet form and received a ยท wide circulation. Mr. Covert also wrote a poem on "Shakespeare" for a Press Club banquet about a year ago, which excited much admiration and was copied into a number of other papers. His literary work has mainly consisted of newspaper articles, and he has probably done as much as any man in Cleveland in the production of that fleeting world of thought which goes forth every morning with the rays of the sun to disappear almost as completely as the sun when the day has gone.
Mr. Covert is a stockholder and director in the Leader and president of the Cleveland Press Club. From his island cottage in the St. Lawrence, he writes breezy sum- mer letters for the Leader.
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Mr. H. A. Griffin, the able editorial writer, and Mr. James B. Morrow, the efficient city editor, also contribute largely to the excellence of the Leader.
The Plain Dealer boasts Messrs. L. E. and R. R. Holden, gentlemen whose culture and journalistic ability win recognition, and Mr. J. H. A. Bone, who bears a most envi- able reputation as a journalist, who is celebrated for his extensive reading and his ability as a critic. In addition to his newspaper work, Mr. Bone has contributed valuable articles to the leading magazines.
Mr. N. S. Cobleigh, the excellent city editor, is also a factor in the standing of the paper.
The leading spirits of the Press are Robert F. Paine, managing editor, J. M. Wilcox, editorial writer, and F. L. Purdy, city editor.
Another professional journalist whose taste and ability has led him beyond the limits of newspaper columns is Mr. J. H. Kennedy, a native of Trumbull county, Ohio. In 1872 he became a reporter on the Daily Plain Dealer, and after- wards upon the Leader. In a year and a half he was made city editor, retaining that position for five years. After having been general news editor and editorial writer of that paper, associate editor of Daily Herald and of Sunday Voice, Mr. Kennedy sold out his interest in the Voice to take editorial charge of the Magazine of Western History, for which he has furnished many articles upon the growth and development of the West. Mr. Kennedy has written many poems of a high order, and has contributed short stories to Chicago Current, Literary Life and the newspapers, one of which was in the prize series of the Cur-
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rent. He has been a most industrious writer, and fur- nished a vast amount of matter to the leading newspapers East and West, and is a member of the Board of Public Library Managers.
W. Scott Robison, the present editor of the Sunday World, published the first Sunday newspaper in the city, the Voice, in 1871. He also started the Sunday Sun in 1880. He is a versatile writer, and very direct and forci- ble in his editorials.
Among those whose ability has made them public benefac- tors in their editorial capacity are conspicuous J. W. Gray, formerly editor of the Plain Dealer, and J. A. Harris and George A. Benedict of the Herald. They were pioneers whose devotion to principle, business enterprise and cour- age in crises raised their respective papers from financial embarrassment and gave them the standing which assured their long career.
Colonel W. P. Fogg, former editor and part owner of the Herald, has contributed to the literature of Cleveland a great deal of elegantly written editorial work, and his extensive travels in unusual lines have been taken for the public as well as himself. The letters descriptive of his journey around the world, published in the Leader and afterwards in book form, illustrated, place the writer in the highest rank of American literary travelers. He describes in wonderful English journeyings through Japan, China, India and Egypt; also, in other letters, the historic mines of Babylon and Nineveh; also in "Arabistan, Land of the Arabian Knights," he revels in the richness of his romantic subject.
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In these days when the American humorist monopolizes so much attention and appreciation of the public and has become so great a necessity to current literature, it is pleasant to remember that the founder of the most popu- lar school of distinctively American humor was connected with the Plain Dealer, and published his quaint produc- tions in its columns. Charles Farrar Browne is placed by the British reviews at the head of American humorists.
The vein of good intention and utility that lay beneath his original style was of great good in the years preced- ing and during the civil war in showing in a true light many popular fallacies. His productions are filled with a keen yet delicate satire that, regarding certain subjects, afterwards became household maxims, and one stroke of his skillful pen was often sufficient to put in a ludicrous attitude some popular craze and destroy it. He was intensely patriotic.
D. R. Locke, the well-known Petroleum V. Nasby, was also connected with the Plain Dealer for a time.
E. V. Smalley, the widely known contributor to the leading magazines, was editor of the Herald from 1875 to 1878.
In addition to the above named gentlemen who have been directly connected with the Cleveland press, is a large number of authors, many of them of wide reputa- tion, who have lived and written in Cleveland and may justly be claimed by the city.
It is to be regretted in the case of all who are mentioned that their number and the limit of space will prevent the writing of any biography, although the lives of authors are
Western Bor Edo Pc Bureau of Eraunhing I'mfi & NY
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a source of unfailing interest. It is possible to give only meagre details of the literary work of each, in some cases quite inadequate to the amount of work and standing of the author.
Colonel Charles Whittlesey, who was born in Connecti- cut, October 14, 1808, and died at Cleveland in 1886, has left the rich legacy of his long and busy career to the pub- lic. He was a naturalist, geologist, antiquarian, histo- rian, a soldier, surveyor and a practical man of business. His early scientific and geological discoveries, particu- larly those in the coal fields of Ohio and the copper and iron regions of Lake Superior, have opened the way to vast industries and wealth. He was interested in meteor- ology, tidal waves, oscillations, etc. He also found time for much research concerning the prehistoric races of Amer- ica, and his writings have given to the mound-builder a personality and a history. Many notes and essays are not yet published in an enduring form-a fact to be regretted. His books are: 'Geological Deposits of Ohio,' 'United States Geological Surveys of Upper Mississippi,' 'United States Geological Surveys of Upper Peninsula of Michi- gan,' 'Life of John Fitch,' 'Fugitive Essays,' mostly his- torical, published at Hudson, Ohio, and in Smithsonian Institute; 'Ancient Works of Ohio,' 'Fluctuations of Lake Levels,' 'Ancient Mining on Lake Superior,' 'Fresh Water Glacial Drift,' a collection of geological papers on the Western Reserve, published in 1866, with some discussions on "The Early History of Cleveland;" numerous articles in the Magazine of Western History.
Hon. Harvey Rice is another of Cleveland's honored ben-
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efactors, having contributed to the public good the high- est good, the possibility of the education of the masses. He is the recognized founder of the laws upon which rests the public school system. He, too, was born in New Eng- land and has thus characteristically used his share of the Puritan inheritance in elevating his fellow-men and women. In the midst of his long and busy life he has found time to write several books: 'Mount Vernon and Other Poems,' 'Letters from the Pacific Slope,""Nature and Culture,' 'Sketches of Western Life,' and 'Pioneers of the Western Reserve,' and a great number of essays and sketches upon a variety of subjects which have been pub- lished in Eastern and Western magazines. The public have paid the books thecompliment of demanding new editions.
Dr. Jared P. Kirtland was born in Wallingford, Connec- ticut, in 1795, and came to Ohio at the age of fifteen. He was eminent as physician, scientist and naturalist. Dur- ing his practice in the country he acquired the love of nature that afterward led him to so great research. For twenty years of his life he was a student of natural science in animal nature. The publication of his extensive re- searches was made under the patronage of the Boston Historical Society, and brought him into prominent notice as a high authority in that department of science. In 1838 he was appointed to the department of Natural History in the geological survey organized by the State of Ohio, and afterwards chosen to fill a chair in the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, and left it to fill a similar position in the Cleveland Medical College. His valued labors as a naturalist are perpetuated in the Kirtland
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Academy of Natural Sciences in Cleveland. He died at his home in Rockport, December 10, 1877.
Dr. Addison P. Dutcher, a descendant of the early Dutch Huguenots, was born in Durham, New York, in 1818. He graduated from the New York College of Physics and Surgery in 1839, and practiced for some years in New York and Pennsylvania. In 1864 he was tendered the chair of Principles and Practice of Medicine in the Charity Hospital Medical College in Cleveland, and afterwards practiced in Cleveland, occupying a leading place in his profession. His contributions to medical literature have been extensive, and were first published in medical period- icals, having since been put into book form. They are: 'Pulmonary Tuberculosis,' published by Appletons, in 1874; 'Sparks from the Forge of a Rough Thinker,' con- sisting of essays; 'Two Voyages to Europe,' 'Selections from My Portfolio,' 'Common Places in Christian Theol- ogy.' He was an active worker in the abolition move- ment, and for years as speaker and writer took a prominent part in the effort to prohibit the sale of intoxi- cating liquors. He died in Cleveland in the winter of 1883.
Leonard Case, from the wealth of a cultivated mind endowed with natural gifts, left but two published me- mentos-"Treasure Trove," a legend of chivalry, a poem filling several pages of the Atlantic Monthly, and after- wards published separately and handsomely illustrated. The other was a poem, entitled "Rondonella" - the swallow-a rendering of the Italian of Tomasso Grossi's
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'Marco Visconte.' Both poems excited much comment and won the highest recommendation of the critics.
Miss Constance F. Woolson, the author of 'Anne,' 'East Angels,' and for long a contributor to the Atlantic, Har- per's Magazine, etc., and who now lives in Florence, Italy, spent her youth in Cleveland, being the daughter of a prominent business man in the city. Her loyalty to Cleve- land and her love of the lakes appear in fine description and delicate touches of nature throughout her works.
Benjamin F. Taylor, the brilliant and versatile author of 'Pictures of Life in Camp and Field,' 'Old time Pictures and Sheaves of Rhyme,' 'The World on Wheels,' 'Summer Savory,' 'Between the Gates,' 'Songs of Yesterday,' 'Dulce Domum' and 'Theophilus Trent,' was for a time a resident of Cleveland, and died in this city in 1885.
Colonel John Hay has, perhaps, touched more hearts and endeared himself more lastingly to his readers, by his two poems "Jim Bludso " and "Little Breeches," than by his most polished production. Their simple pathos, their spirit of tender humanity, will make them live when books of stately lyrics are mildewed from disuse. Besides the volume of 'Pike County Ballads,' Mr. Hay's official residence in Madrid gave us the beautifully written volume 'Castilian Days.' His last joint work with Mr. Nicola, 'The Life of Abraham Lincoln,' will be a classic in the annals of American history, being probably the only truly authoritative record of our representative American hero. Though his home is at Washington, he spends several months each year in Cleveland. We can boast of
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no literary personage more widely known and appreciated than John Hay.
Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton has won an enviable position in the literary galaxy of the day by the industry with which she has used her gifted and cultured pen and the tact with which she has made attractive to young people the high path to successful living in the old-fashioned sense. Mrs. Bolton's books and sketches are inspired by deep and noble philanthropy, visible in the exquisite motherliness of her writings for young people and the zeal with which she has joined her husband in his labor to provide the masses with good literature and lectures. She was one of the prime movers in early temperance work, and is said to have contributed more toward public sentiment in keeping the cause before the people than any other one agency. Besides contributions to nearly forty periodicals, she has published the following books: 'Famous American Authors,' 'Girls who Became Famous,' 'Poor Boys who Became Famous Men,' 'Stories from Life,' 'Social Studies in England,' 'How Success is Won;' and a volume of poems entitled 'From Heart and Nature,' written jointly by Sarah K. and Charles K. Bolton, mother and son.
Mr. C. E. Bolton was born in Massachusetts and gradu- ated from Amherst College in 1865. He spent six seasons in traveling through Europe. In 1880 he was a delegate to the World's Convention of the Young Men's Christian Association, and to the Sunday School centenary held in London. While abroad he corresponded for a number of leading journals, and has also written for St. Nicholas and Wide Awake. In 1881 he formed the Cleveland Educa-
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tional Bureau, which gave each winter in the great taber- nacle to four thousand persons a course of ten lectures preceded by concerts and half-hour preludes on impor- tant subjects, and choice brief books. The Century for January, 1885, gives an article upon the Educational Bureau from the pen of Washington Gladden. During the lecture seasons of 1885-6-7 he gave hundreds of lectures in the large cities East, West, North and South.
Mrs. Lydia Hoyt Farmer, author of 'The Boys' Book of Famous Rulers,"Girls' Book of Famous Queens," A Story Book of Science,' 'The Prince of the Flaming Star,' 'What She Made of Her Life,' has been contributing to the vari- ous departments of literature for the last ten years. She has written upon art, society and literature for different magazines and newspapers, besides furnishing several series of children's stories for St: Nicholas, Pansy, Sunday Magazine and other popular magazines. Mrs. Farmer's books have been very flatteringly received by both the press and the public, the latter keeping them in constant demand. The latest of these, 'The Prince of the Flaming Star,' is a fairy operetta, an elegant quarto volume, which is a striking example of the author's diversified talents, the works, music and illustrations all being from her facile hand. The operetta is in four acts, introducing the fairy realms of Heaven, Titiania's kingdom on earth, the "Flower Court" and a scene of general rejoicing among the fairies of both spheres. The score is full of pleasing mel- odies and attractive airs. Mrs. Farmer is now engaged in preparing a 'Life of Lafayette,' to be followed by a
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" Young Folks' History of the French Revolution,' both of which will be published the coming year.
Elihu Jerome Farmer is a native of Ohio and was edu- cated at Hanerford College, Pennsylvania. His literary career began in 1871 when he wrote a series of brilliant letters from Wall street to the Cleveland Leader. In 1873 he began the publication of the Pictorial World, a paper after the style of the New York Graphic, the earliest attempt at illustrated journalism in our city; but the paper was in advance of the growth of the city, and for lack of proper support a paper that would have been an ornament to Cleveland was allowed to fold its pages and retire from public view. Mr. Farmer then for several years became a contributor to numerous newspapers and maga- zines throughout the country, and for a time successfully indulged the poetic mood. During three visits to the Rocky Mountains in 1881-82-83, Mr. Farmer contrib- uted a series of letters to the Leader entitled "Among the Rockies," full of brilliant description and appreciation of nature. In 1882 Mr. Farmer published a pamphlet entitled "Statistics in Relation to Gold and Silver." In 1883, 'Resources of Rocky Mountains,' a book to which the press gave a most flattering reception. In 1884 appeared 'A Political and Historical Sketch.' In 1886 Mr. Farmer prepared a pamphlet for the Plain Dealer entitled "The Plain Dealer Free Coinage Silver Bill and a Plea for Bi-metallism in the United States," followed by a much larger work entitled 'The Conspiracy Against Silver, or a Plea for Bi-metallism in the United States,' a work that has gone through two editions. Mr. Farmer is now
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proprietor of The Silver Dollar. He is soon to publish another pamphlet on the money question, and is also engaged upon a historical work.
Dr. Elroy M. Avery's first important literary work was as war correspondent of the Detroit Daily Tribune. The letters of this series covered a period of more than three years, and some of them were widely copied .. At the close of the war their author became the Michigan University correspondent of the Tribune and city editor of the Ann Arbor Courier. In 1870 he was taken upon the editorial staff of the Tribune and there continued until the summer of 1871, when he took charge of the schools of East Cleve- land, now the East End. In 1876 Burrows Brothers, of this city, published Avery's 'Elements of Physics,' which was immediately adopted for use in the high schools of Cleveland. In 1878 appeared his 'Elements of Natural Philosophy,' Shelden & Co., New York, also adopted in hundreds of high schools in the United States and Canada, and soon became what it remains-the leading American text-book of its class. It "hit the market," and its success was so immediate and decided that its publishers called for more "copy." They have since published the 'Ele- ments of Chemistry,' 'The Complete Chemistry,' 'First Principles of Natural Philosophy,' 'Modern Electricity and Magnetism,' 'Teacher's Handbook and Physical Tech- nics.' All of these books have been literary, educational and commercial successes. Their annual revision consti- tutes no small part of their author's work. For several years Dr. Avery acted as literary "Controversialist-in- chief," for the Brush Electric Light Company. His lance
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was pointed as well as polished, and many of his tourna- ments attracted general attention among electricians and electric light men. Notable among these achievements was the annihilation of the Louisville "Pirates " in Janu- ary, 1883. In 1886 his plea for 'Words Correctly Spoken' was published, and twenty thousand copies of this bro- chure were sold within the first six months, and the demand still continues active. For the last two or three years Dr. Avery has given most of his time to studies in American History, in which field he intends to occupy most of the still remaining years of his literary life.
Hon. A. G. Riddle, although commencing a literary career late in life, and probably as a rest from the toils of a busy law practice, has given the world a series of pictures of Western Reserve life, at once truthful and attractive. His first novel, 'Bart Ridgely,' written at the age of fifty-seven, and generally thought to be the author's best, was very flatteringly received. The follow- ing year saw the 'The Portrait' published, like its prede- cessor, at Boston, a semi-historical novel of the planting of Mormonism in Northern Ohio, the rise of the Disciple church, etc. The history is accurate. Judge Jere Black: considered these two to be of the best American novels. In 1875 was published 'Alice Brand,' an unpleasant tale of Washington in the lurid days at the close of the war, and recognized as a truthful and graphic sketch of that mephitic period. This was followed by a series of tales in the Leader, published later in a volume entitled 'The House of Ross,' containing some of the author's best work. 'Hart and his Bear,' a boy and girl story, appeared
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next. In addition were published three poems for private circulation. In 1873 the Morrisons published a volume of preliminary law lectures delivered to the first class of Howard University. 'The Life of Garfield' is also well known; also 'Sketches of Wade.' All these works, save 'Alice Brand,' were of the Western Reserve, strong with the flavor and color, the spirit of the Reserve, of the pioneers; and the author's intense love of that life and time, of portions of that lovely and picturesque region, has evidently been the inspiration of his works.
Mr. J. J. Elvell was from 1857 to 1861 editor of the Western Law Monthly, a law journal of large circulation in the West. In 1859 he wrote and published a work on 'Malpractice and Medical Evidence, Comprising the Ele- ments of Medical Jurisprudence.' This book has reached its fourth edition and become a standard work on the subject, and has been well received in this country and in England and Germany. Mr. Elwell has written for vari- ous journals-the North American Review, Medico-Legal Journal, and Medical Quartertus.
Mir. Jesse B. Bishop compiled and published 'The Cleve- land Law Reporter,' 'Memoir of the Rev. S. W. Adams, D. D.,' 'In Memoriam Hon. Franklin T. Backus.'
Mrs. H. G. C. Arey's literary work commenced when as . a child she was caught writing a rhymed version of some local occurrence in her writing-book, between the fine copy and the coarse copy of the olden time. The production was read aloud by the teacher in spite of the protests of the small authoress, and from that time she was besieged by local papers for contributions. Mrs. Arey's sketches
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were in time published in the Cleveland papers and in Eastern papers and magazines. At length Mrs. Arey accepted the editorship of a child's magazine, after which, at her suggestion, a household magazine was started, the first of its kind, and the forerunner of the number now in the field which have added so much to the dignity of housekeeping. A volume of Mrs. Arey's poems was pub- lished by J. C. Derby, New York, and in 1884 a small volume entitled 'Home and School Training,' by the Lip- pincotts. Mrs. Arey is now editor of the Earnest Worker.
Mrs. Sarah M. Perkins has been a prime mover in the question of Woman's Suffrage. She has been a prominent lecturer for the last twenty years, going East and West, North and South, and has held numerous responsible positions in the organization. Mrs. Perkins is also an active worker in the temperance cause, and now fills the office of State Organizer. She has written extensively for periodicals and has published two or three books, the last of which is 'Helen ; or Will She Save Him ?' All were most kindly received by the press.
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