USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920 > Part 49
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The Columbus Symphony Association, organized in 1910, to bring great orchestral or- ganizations to Columbus operated for a few years. Kate M. Lacey in 1913 organized her yearly "Quality Series" of concerts, still continuing with success.
Columbus has had several remarkable church choirs-among them that of the old First Presbyterian Church, in which H. W. Frillman, W. H. Lott, W. W. McCallip, A. L. More- head, Emma Lathrop, Emma McCarter and Lizzie MeGeah carried church music to its high- est perfection. The choir of St. Paul's Episcopal church has had a remarkable history. It began in 1882 with a single quartet composed of Horace Stanwood, Willis G. Bowland, Grace Reals and Marie Gemuender. The first break in the quartet was caused by the death of Mr. Stanwood and the second by the departure of Miss Reals for Boston to sing in opera. W. H. Lott then became director and the quartet was first doubled, then tripled and later increased to 30 voices. Mr. Bowland, who was one of the original quartet, has been the director for twenty-seven years.
Art.
The first decade of the history of Columbus was not yet completed when a painter of considerable renown, William Bambrough, an Englishman, settled in Columbus in 1819. He was a friend of the great Audubon and is credited with having assisted in the making of those marvelous bird pictures which have never been excelled and which did so much to make Audubon's work the useful thing it has ever since been. Bambrough died in 1860.
William Walcutt, one of that family which has cut so large a figure in the history of the city, was born in Columbus in 1819. He was the first American painter to be decorated by the French Academy. He died in 1882, after a life devoted to his art and having accom- plished much to justify his great reputation. He spent much of his time in New York and in Europe and did considerable work as a sculptor. The Perry monument at Cleveland and the Smith monument in Columbus are among his works in that line. His brothers David B. and George E. were also artists and made a specialty of portrait painting and much of their work is still to be seen here. Some of the portraits in the State House are said to be theirs. George was the founder and proprietor of Walcutt's Museum, which for many years flourished as the only institution of the kind in the city. The Walcutt family was one of the pioneer families and the mother of the artists was Muriel Broderick, daughter of one of the men who came to Franklinton with Sullivant in 1797. They all had the soldier spirit and the family was conspicuous in the Mexican as well as the Civil War.
John H. Witt came to Columbus in 1862 and painted landscapes as well as portraits. In 1878 he went to New York where he was very successful. Among his best known por- traits are those of General Sherman, Senator John Sherman and Judge Swayne, which were made in Washington, D. C.
A pupil of Witt's was Silas Martin, born in Columbus in 1841, and by reason of his de- votion to local subjects, very dear to the recollection of many. He had the rare good sense to see beauty enough for his art in the nooks and corners of his native place and the can- vasses which he made perpetuate many of the beautiful spots of this locality. He made
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portraits of many leading citizens, his most notable work of this kind being a portrait of MeKinley. He, too, was a soldier of the Civil War. In 1889 he was placed at the head of the Art Department at Ohio State University and was still in office when he died in 1906.
Columbus also elaims as her own the sculptor Thomas D. Jones. He was born in New York state in 1811, but lived so much of his time and did so much of his work in this city that the elaim is well founded. He was a remarkable example of an artist without eduea- tion in his art. He began chiselling things out of stone of his own intuition. His output was rather large and ineluded many busts of celebrated people like Henry Clay, Daniel Web- ster, Corwin, Chase, Lincoln, Queen Victoria, and others. In 1871 his chef d' oeuvre, the Lincoln-Soldiers Memorial in the rotunda of the State House at Columbus was unveiled with great ceremony. It is regarded by all erities as a real work of art. Among his pupils at his studio in Columbus in the early 60's was the famous actress, Adah Isaaes Menken. He died in 1881, and was buried in the Welsh Hills Cemetery in Licking county, Ohio.
Of the later group of painters there were J. J. Barber and Herman Baker, both now dead, but famous for their cattle pieces: Phil K. Clover, portrait painter. The mantle of Silas Martin seems to have deseended upon Maurice Stewart Hague who, like Alice Schille, has done some notable landseape work, finding subjeets in the woods and fields and along the streams near Columbus. Mr. and Mrs. Albert C. Fauley, later of Granville, did many fine portraits here. Columbus is proud of the achievements elsewhere of George Bellows and Theodore Butler, impressionists, and of many others at home, including Josephine Klippart and May Cooke, the latter of whom is doing good work in sculpture.
The Columbus Art Association was organized at the home of Mrs. Alfred Kelley, Oeto- ber 19, 1878, with seventy-two members. Its first officers were: President, Mrs. Alfred Kelley; first vice president, Mrs. Ezra Bliss; second vice president, Mrs. Henry C. Noble; secretary, Mrs. Charles Osborn; treasurer, Mrs. B. N. Huntington; board of managers, Mesdames Daugherty, Loving, Wade, Taylor, Wileox, Dennison, R. S. Neil, H. M. Neil, Hutchinson, Galloway, Acton and Ide; advisory council, Mesdames Brent, Andrews, Hayden, Derby, Noble and Swan. Monthly meetings were held in a room over the Hayden bank. Its first funds were the result of a course of lectures delivered by Director French of the Chicago Art Institute. The Association opened the Columbus Art School, January 6, 1879, in rooms donated by Francis C. Sessions in the building at the southeast corner of Long and High streets. Prof. W. S. Goodnough was the first director. The teachers were re- warded by a percentage of students' fees. On the board of instruction, besides the director, were: Miss Ifattie Belleville, Miss Josephine Klippart, Charles E. Cookman, Miss M. Rath, Mrs. H. B. DuBarry and John Piersche.
Mrs. John G. Deshler, sr., in her will devised about $85,000 for an Art Gallery; and in order that the bequest might be legally received, under the advice of Judge Joseph R. Swan, Henry C. Noble and Colonel James A. Wilcox, the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts was incor- porated. But Mrs. Deshler's will was set aside in the courts, and the endowment was lost. A fusion of the Columbus Art Association and the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts was then effected, the latter assuming control of the property and the former becoming the working branch. To accomplish this, three men resigned from the board of the incorporated body. and Mrs. Ezra Bliss, Mrs. M. A. Daugherty and Mrs. Alfred Kelley were elected to their places for life.
Mrs. Bliss heads the list of actual donors to the Association, her gift being $15,000, now amounting to $16,000. Emerson MeMillin gave the lot on which Memorial Hall now stands, estimated to be worth and afterwards sold to the county for $30,000, on condition that other citizens of Columbus should give another $30,000. This fund was raised, Catherine M. Tut- tle giving $10,000 of it. Subsequently Miss Tuttle gave $31,000 to be used for scholarships in the Art School. Treasurer E. R. Sharp's report for 1918 showed an endowment fund for the Gallery of Fine Arts of $75,000 and a fund of $50,000 for the use of the Association and school.
The Art School was carly moved to the upper story of the Y. M. C. A. building on Third street, where John E. Hussey became the director and later to the John W. Andrews prop- erty cast of the Columbus Club, and then to the Monypeny home at the northwest corner of Broad and Washington, which property is now owned by the Gallery of Fine Arts. Francis C. Sessions, when he died, made some effort to provide endowment for the cause of art in
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Columbus, but that effort was frustrated until Mrs. Sessions' death in 1919, when the part of the will transferirng the Sessions' home became effective.
Despite its troubled existence, the Art Association has done much good work. It has educated many students, some of whom have achieved wide fame. It has furnished employ- ment to many and has given the city the benefit of many fine exhibitions of the works of modern masters. Among its exhibitions, that of May, 1895, stands out preeminent, when through the influence of Emerson MeMillin and C. C. Waite, some of the finest pictures in the country were loaned.
The Art School gives instruction in drawing, painting, illustrating, sculpture, design, metal work and interior decoration. The present director is Pearl Remy, whose associates in instruction are Julius Golz, jr., Alice Schille, Grace Kelton and John E. Hussey. F. W. Schu- macher is president of the Gallery of Fine Arts and Mrs. H. B. Arnold is president of the Art Association.
At the northwest corner of the Capitol building stands the Levi Tucker Scofield group monument of great Ohioans. Around a substantial pedestal of granite stand bronze statues of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Stanton, Garfield, Hayes and Chase, while surmounting the shaft is the statue of a woman representing the Roman matron, Cornelia, mother of the famous Gracchi. Near the top of the shaft are inscribed her words, used in referring to her children, "These are my jewels." It is said to have been General Roeliff Brinkerhoff who gave the idea to the sculptor. The monument was ereeted in the State House yard in 1894.
The painting of "Perry's Victory on Lake Erie," which adorns the rotunda of the Capitol building, was executed by William H. Powell in 1863. This painting, which is the original, measures 15 by 16 feet. Subsequently he made a similar picture on a larger canvas for the Capitol at Washington.
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James Kilbourne
C
Lovedes Halbsauce
James Kilbonne
BIOGRAPHICAL
COL. JAMES KILBOURNE. On the roster of the names of those who were promin- ently identified with the development of the city of Columbus during the past half century, that of Col. James Kilbourne, soldier, philanthropist, manufacturer and prominent citizen merits a place of honor. His long life had been spent in his home city and ever during the epoch embraced in his brilliant business and public career his energies were effectively di- rected along normal lines of industry and business enterprises, through which he had made distinct contribution to the progress of this favored section of the great Buckeye common- wealtlı.
Colonel Kilbourne was born in Columbus October 9, 18.12. His death occurred in Colum- bus July 8, 1919. He was a son of Lincoln Kilbourne and a grandson of Col. James Kil- bourne, the first, who was one of the founders of the state of Ohio. The latter was born in New Britain, Connecticut, October 19, 1770, and he spent the first fifteen years of his life on his father's farm. He was then apprenticed to a clothier for a period of four years. However, at the beginning of his fourth year as an apprentice his master gave him his time and placed him in charge of the establishment. On November 8, 1789, he married Lucy Fitch, a daughter of John Fitch of Philadelphia, inventor and builder of the first steamboat in the world. During the next few years he was engaged in merchandising and manufacturing, meeting with splendid success. About the year 1800 he presented himself as a candidate for orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church and was ordained. He declined several calls to pastorates in Connecticut, as he had already formed a project of coming to Ohio. In the spring of 1802 he came to Ohio on an exploring trip, traveling the first three hundred miles of his journey by stage, walked across the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh, carrying a pack, and continued on foot from that city into Ohio. Being well satisfied with the country he made a survey, selected a desirable location and returned to Connecticut and formed an association of forty members, known as the "Scioto Company," which closed a contract at once for a township of sixteen thousand acres he had selected. In the spring of 1803 he returned, bringing with him artisans, supplies, etc., and settled the new purchase, which is now Worthington. St. John's Episcopal Church was founded there, and Colonel Kilbourne be- came its rector. He retired from the ministry in 1804 and upon the organization of the State government of Ohio was appointed a civil magistrate and an officer of the militia on the northwestern frontiers. In the spring of 1805 he explored the south shore of Lake Erie and selected the site of Sandusky city. About this time, unsolicited, he received the appoint- ment of United States surveyor of a large portion of the public lands. In 1806 he was appointed one of the first trustces of the Ohio College at Athens. In 1808 he was ap- pointed one of three commissioners to locate the seat of Miami University. About this time he was elected major of the Frontier regiment and soon afterwards was made lieutenant- colonel and then colonel of the regiment.
On the organization of Worthington College in 1812, Colonel Kilbourne was elected president of the corporation and during the same year the President of the United States appointed him a commissioner to settle the boundary between the public lands and the great Virginia Reservation. Immediately after the completion of this service he was elected a member of Congress. Upon his return home from the second session he was unanimously elected colonel and accepted the commission. In the fall of 1814 he was again placed in nomination for Congress and was re-elected by a large majority. He declined a re-nomina- tion at the end of the fourteenth Congress. While a member of that body he paid a great deal of attention to the interests of the great West. He was the first to propose the donation of land to actual settlers in the Northwest Territory, and as chairman of a select committee he drew up and presented a bill for that purpose. At about the commencement of the War of 1812, it being known that Colonel Kilbourne possessed knowledge of manu- facturing and had spare capital, he was requested by friends in New York and urged by the President and his cabinet and members of Congress to embark in the manufacture of
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woolen goods for clothing the army and navy, and he accordingly joined a company for that purpose, investing all his ready capital and ineurring large liabilities. The declaration of peace destroyed the demand for such goods as he was manufacturing and the company met with heavy losses. Colonel Kilbourne sustained the factories at Worthington and Steu- benville, Ohio, until 1820, in which year he was obliged to elose them. He then took up surveying again, as a means of supporting himself and family and during the next twenty years was busily engaged in surveying of all kinds.
In 1823 Colonel Kilbourne was elected to the Ohio Legislature, and later the governor appointed him to select the lands granted by Congress towards the Ohio eanal. In 1838 he was again eleeted to the General Assembly. He was the presiding officer at the great State convention at Columbus on July 4, 1839, for laying the corner-stone of the State capitol of Ohio, and also presided at the noted Whig convention February 22, 1810. He was usually called on to preside over all conventions and meetings which he attended and he delivered many publie addresses all over the State. He died at his home in Worthington on Deeem- ber 9, 1850. His first wife having died soon after they came to Ohio, the Colonel was married to Cynthia Goodale in 1808. She was the daughter of Major Nathan Goodale, an officer in the American army during the Revolutionary War, who was afterwards taken prisoner by the Indians near Belpre, Ohio, in 1793, and died in captivity. Her brother, Dr. Lincoln Goodale, gave to Columbus the beautiful park which bears his name. She was the first white female ehild to set foot on Ohio soil.
Lineoln Kilbourne, son of Colonel James and Cynthia (Goodale) Kilbourne, was born at Worthington, Ohio, Oetober 19, 1810. He was a student at Worthington College until he reached his fifteenth year, then aeeepted a position as elerk in the store of his unele, Dr. Lineoln Goodale, at Columbus. In 1835 he beame a partner in the store. On the retire- ment of Dr. Goodale, Lineol Kilbourne formed the partnership of Fay & Kilbourne, general merehants. This firm was later dissolved, Mr. Kilbourne taking the hardware end of the business. Later it was re-organized as Kilbourne, Kuhns & Company, and thus continued until 1868, when the style of the firm was changed to Kilbourne, Jones & Company, at the head of which Mr. Kilbourne remained until his death. He was one of the incorporators of the Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Company of the present day, of which he was a dircetor until his death. He was the executor of the Dr. Goodale estate. He was one of six honorary members of the Columbus Board of Trade. He took a deep interest in public affairs, and while his age prevented him from participating in the Civil War, he was aetive in all measures taken by the city for the support of the Union army and the federal gov- ernment, and was a liberal supporter of the dependent families of soldiers while the latter were at the front.
On June 13, 1837, Mr. Kilbourne married Jane Evans, at Gambier, Ohio, and to them five children were born. His death oceurred in Columbus, February 13, 1891.
The late Colonel James Kilbourne, the second, was reared in Columbus, where he at- tended the public schools, later studied at Kenyon College, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1862, and his alma mater conferred the degree of Master of Arts on him in 1865 and the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1910. Harvard University also gave him the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1868. Ile was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Nu Pi Kappa societies and of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was admitted to the bar of Ohio and practiced law in Columbus for some time with sueeess. But it was as a soldier, philanthropist, financier, and manufacturer that he became prominent in the affairs of the capital city and the State of Ohio. He declined a commission as major to enlist as a private in the Eighty-fourth regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, for the Civil War. He was promoted to second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain in the Ninety-fifth regiment. Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served on the staffs of Gen. J. M. Tuttle, commanding the Third Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, and Gen. John MeArthur, commanding the First Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee. He was breveted major, lieuten- ant-colonel and colonel of United States Volunteers for "gallant and meritorious services during the war." At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he offered his services to the governor of Ohio in any eapaeity.
Politically, Colonel Kilbourne had always been aligned with the Democratic party and stood high in its councils. He served as a delegate from his state to several Democratic national conventions, being sent as a delegate from the twelfth district to the conventions
J. E. Sater
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BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION
of 1892 and 1896 and was a delegate-at-large to the convention of 1900, acting as chair- man of the Ohio delegation that year. In 1908 he was the candidate from the twelfth district for presidential elector. In 1899 the Colonel's name was presented for the nomination for governor at the State convention held at Zanesville, but he was defeated for the nomina- tion by one-half vote, nevertheless in 1901 Colonel Kilbourne was nominated by his party by acclamation for governor.
Colonel Kilbourne founded the firm of Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Company and had been its president ever since its organization. His faithful and able discharge of the duties of this important post resulted in building up an extensive and constantly growing business, the products of this well known concern going to nearly every country in the world. He also served as director of many important corporations and at the time of his death was a member of the board of directors of the Hayden-Clinton and the New First National Banks. He had served as president of the Columbus Board of Trade and was a director in the same from 1887 to 1891. For ten years he was president of the Columbus Public Library, and was an honorary member of the Columbus Trades and Labor Assembly, and of the Columbus Building and Trades Council. He organized the Columbus Children's Hospital and was president of the same for five years, when he deelined to serve longer in that capacity, but remained a member of the Board of Trustees. He was a member of the Board of Managers of the Board of Associated Charities; a member of the National Child Labor Association, the National Conference of Charities, the National Civic Federation, the American Society of Political and Social Seience, the National Geographic Society, the National Forestry Association, the Ohio Horticultural and Archaeological Society, and viee- president of the Leslie F. Owen Educational Society. He was president of the Ohio Cen- tennial Commission in 1898, and had been president of the Central Ohio Harvard Club, president of the Kenyon College Association of Central Ohio, president of the Neighbor- hood Guild, president of the Columbus, Arlington and Magazine Clubs and a vestryman of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, of the Union Veteran Legion, the Loyal Legion, and was the only Democrat ever elected com- mander of the Ohio Commandery of the latter organization-a compliment to his popularity. He was twice vice-president of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, and was a mem- ber of the Ohio Vicksburg Battlefield Association. In 1893 and 1894 he was president of the Ohio Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was Governor of the Ohio Society of the Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims and a member of the Society of the Descendants of the Mayflower, he being a descendant in the maternal line from Elder William Brewster. The above enumeration speaks volumes for his activity and prominence along all lines of endeavor in charitable and other movements of a laudable nature and pro- claims his sterling worth as a man and citizen.
On October 9, 1869, Colonel Kilbourne was united in marriage with Anna Bancroft Wright, eldest daughter of Gen. George Bohan Wright. His widow, three sons and a daughter survive.
Colonel Kilbourne was one of the notable men of his day and generation in Ohio and in every way merited the high esteem in which he was universally held.
JUDGE JOHN ELBERT SATER. While he was a practicing attorney, Judge John Elbert Sater, United States Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, ranked as one of the leaders of the Columbus Bar. On the bench, his serious approach to every problem of law and his laborious study of every case, together with his great legal learning and sound judgment, lead him to decisions, many of which have been and are still cited in other courts as the standards of justice. This has been notably true in the interpretation of new statutes where there was no precedent to guide him. Federal statutes enacted for the better prose- cution of the world war.
Judge Sater is a native Buckeye and a descendant of two old American families. The Saters came over from England in Colonial days and settled in Maryland, from whence the grandparents of our subject came to Ohio in pioneer times, settling in Hamilton county. John J. Sater, father of the Judge, who was born in Crosby township, Hamilton county, this State, married Nancy Larason, also a native of that county, to which her family removed from New Jersey.
John E. Sater was born on the old Sater homestead in Crosby township. Hamilton county.
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January 16, 1854. The death of both parents left him an orphan in his boyhood. He was an ambitions lad and was determined to obtain an education. Like Lincoln, he studied what few books le eould obtain at home and attended the common sehools, and by the time he was sixteen years old he began to teach school. He entered Miami University in 1871, and following the temporary elosing of that college two years later, entered Marietta Col- lege, from which he was graduated in 1875 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Three years later his alma mater gave him the Master's degree and in 1910, the degree of LI .. D. In 1911, Miami University also conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Immediately fol- lowing his graduation in 1875, he accepted the position of Superintendent of Schools at Wauseon, Ohio, serving also as sehool examiner of Fulton county. In 1881 he resigned these positions to accept the appointment as chief elerk in the office of the State School Com- missioner at Columbus. All the duties of this educational work were faithfully performed, but his goal was not here. When he was but twelve years of age he had decided to be a lawyer and, now in the spare moments of clerical work, he began reading law. On June 3, 188.4, he was admitted to the bar, ranking third in a class of forty-six, and immediately began the practice of his profession in Columbus, achieving in the next twenty-three years the distinction that marked him as a suitable man for the Federal bench.
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