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 52
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After his military eareer, voung Pugh returned home and, being ambitious to obtain a higher education, entered Ohio University at Athens but left that institution at the end of his junior year and went to Middleburn, Tyler county, West Virginia. He read law and was admitted to the bar in that state and engaged in the practice of law for a period of ten years at Middleburn. During that period he served as Prosecuting Attorney for Tyler county and while there was also honored by his constituents sending him to the Legislature
Huge: Zahor
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of West Virginia for one term. He discharged his duties in both these offiees to the satis- faetion of all coneerned. He was also during that period a delegate from Tyler county to the West Virginia constitutional convention.
Judge Pugh removed to Columbus in 1880 and here he has been engaged in the general praetiee of law. During this protraeted period of forty years he has beeome widely known as one of the able members of the loeal bar and has figured prominently in many important cases in the Columbus eourts. He has met with a fair measure of sueeess all along the line and has kept steady in the praetiee with the exception of the time he spent on the beneh of the Common Pleas Court.
Ever a stauneh Republiean, Judge Pugh has long been regarded as one of the leaders of his party in Franklin county and he has done much for the sueeess of his party in this seetion of the State. In 1883 he was the choice of the Republicans for the State Legisla- ture from this county and in 1886 he was nominated by his party for the office of Mayor of Columbus, his opponent being General Waleutt, of the Forty-sixth Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, Judge Pugh having served under him during the Civil War. In April, 1887, Gov- ernor Joseph B. Foraker appointed Mr. Pugh judge of the Common Pleas Court and in 1888 he was eleeted for the full term of five years, and so ably and faithfully did he discharge his duties that he was re-elected for another term of five years. As a judge he more than met the expectations of his constituents and friends, for he eame to the bench well fortified in every respect for the discharge of his duties. He was profoundly versed in all phases of jurisprudenee and his decisions were ever marked with sound judgment, a sense of fairness to all eoneerned, and a rare knowledge of the law. He presided over the trials of three very important eases-the case of Ohio vs. Robert Montgomery, ealled the "Tally Sheet" ease, in which several prominent lawyers were engaged, Judge Thurman. Colonel Holmes, Luther L. Mills of Chicago, George L. Converse, E. L. Taylor, Cyrus Huling, and Governor Nash: Church vs. Church, a celebrated divoree ease: and the State of Ohio vs. William J. Elliott, a sensational murder ease.
Upon leaving the bench Judge Pugh, in June, 1898, resumed private practice, which he has sinee continued with his usual sueeess. For a period of nine years he was professor in the law department of Ohio State University, teaching the branches of equity, municipal corporation and real estate law.
He is a member of the Franklin County Bar Association, the Ohio State Bar Association, the Grand Army of the Republie, the Masonie fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, and the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Judge Pugh married Ida Swan, who was born in Tyler county, West Virginia, the daughter of Randolph Swan, a merchant of that county. To the Judge and wife two children have been born, namely: Lawrenee R., who was graduated from the law department of Ohio State University, is engaged in practice with his father ; and Belle, who is at home.
HENRY CLAY TAYLOR. It is seldom given to any man to attain the heights of true citizenship as was given the late Henry Clay Taylor who, as lawyer, publie man and phil- anthropist, left a reeord which easily distinguished him and won for him the title of "foremost eitizen." He was born in Franklin county, and was the son of pioneers of the county, his paternal grandfather having, in 1801, made the first settlement along Big Walnut creek in Truro township, which township he named in honor of his birthplace, Truro. Nova Scotia. His father, the late David Taylor, was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, July 21, 1801, and was but a child when the family came to Franklin county. He married Mar- garet Livingston, who was born in this eounty November 2, 1809, and both lived all their lives in this community, the father dying July 29, 1889, the mother February 12, 1895.
Henry C. Taylor was born May 15, 1844, in the house built by his father and known as "West Crest," which stood just east of the city in Truro township, and he spent all of his long, useful life here. He was graduated from Miami University with the elass of '65, A. B. degree and that University gave him the Hon. A. M. degree in 1867. Leaving Miami he read law in the office of Henry C. Noble, then entered Harvard Law School where he was graduated with the elass of '67, B. L. degree, and was admitted to the bar and began practice in Columbus in 1867. H . snecess and progress soon placed him in the front ranks of the local bar and for the next half century he held recognition as one of the leading attorneys praetieing in the State and Federal courts in central Ohio.
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In 1862 Mr. Taylor volunteered for service as a soldier in the Civil War and as a mem- ber of Company A, Eighty-sixth Regiment, Ohio Volunteers Infantry, rendered faithful sup- port to his country in the time of peril.
In 1890 he was made president of the Franklin County Bar Association, was a member of the City Council in 1887 and 1888, was elected to the Ohio General Assembly in 1886-'88, and was Judge Advocate General of Ohio on the staff of Governor Nash in 1900-1904. He was a candidate for Mayor of the city on the Republican ticket. Mr. Taylor was for many years actively identified with a number of public organizations, charitable and philanthropic, and gave generously of his time, advice and means to all worthy movements. He served as vice president of the Humane Society for about 14 years and as its president for two years, he was vice president of the Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in 1907, president of Green Lawn Cemetery Association, trustee of the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, was one of the founders and for many years a trustee of the Broad Street Presby- terian Church, was a member of McCoy Post, G. A. R., president of The Harvard Club of Central Ohio in 1908, was a charter member of the Columbus Club and was vice presi- dent of the Columbus Country Club Company from 1901 until his death.
On June 9, 1897, Mr. Taylor was united in marriage with Miss Rebecca W. McKee, daughter of James M. and Indiana (Lodge) McKee, the father a native of Ireland and the mother of Indiana. Both were early residents of Columbus.
To this marriage one son was born, Livingston Lodge Taylor, born May 10, 1898, in the old family home at No. 1400 East Broad street. He attended the Columbus public schools, Columbus Academy, St. George's Preparatory School of Rhode Island and is now (1918) a Sophomore at Princeton University.
The death of Mr. Taylor, March 27, 1917, was universally mourned by all who knew him and was the occasion of many tributes to his worth as a citizen and man.
The Columbus Evening Dispatch of March 28, 1917, said editorially :
"Columbus had no better citizen than the late Henry C. Taylor. The son of one of the sturdy pioncers of this county, he was himself a man of heroic mold, a soldier in the Civil War, a lawyer of high ideals and a representative of the philanthropic spirit of the city. After an active and useful service of country, State and county he has gone, leaving a record of fine achievement and the memory of a gracious, sympathetic and helpful per- sonality."
The Ohio State Journal, March 29, 1917, said editorially :
"Another noble citizen gone. Death has removed from our midst another of our noble citizens, Henry C. Taylor, a gentleman of clean and tranquil life and one who was closely identified with the traditions of Columbus. His ancestry was of pioneer days, which came here when the Indians left and founded a home that has continued ever since. Henry C. Taylor was a fine personality, a man of the truest ideals and of high companion- able qualities."
The Franklin County Bar Association, The Columbus Humane Society, and other organ- izations of which Mr. Taylor was a member passed resolutions on his death.
WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON. It has been given to Dr. William Oxley Thompson, president of the Ohio State University, to serve with distinction in many different, but allied, fields of human endeavor. A minister of the gospel, his eloquence is still often heard in the pulpit and he ranks among the leaders of religious thought and action in the State and nation. An educator and University executive, he has given and is still giving to a large faculty and to thousands of students every year the inspiration of a close fellowship and an optimistic personality. In the great war just ended, he gave, as related elsewhere in this volume, notable service to the State and nation, both as counselor and speaker in the cause of democracy. First on the campus, not only because of his position, but also because of the esteem in which he is universally held, he is also among the first citizens of Columbus in influence for good. Called in emergencies to lead in movements for a better Columbus, he has never shirked, nor has he by his service lessened the regard of his fellow-citizens. On the contrary, strong in his convictions. through his mental alertness and resourcefulness, his broad sympathy, his ready utterance and his sense of humor, he has won the respect even of those who oppose him. It was in the spirit of this truthful characterization that the con-
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elusion of Dr. Thompson's twentieth year as president of the Ohio State University was eele- brated, under the auspiees of the Alumni Association, in June, 1919.
David Thompson, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketeh and a weaver by trade, eame from the north of Ireland in 1814, and settled on 160 aeres of land in Guern- sey county, three and a half miles northeast of New Coneord, Ohio, where he lived as a farmer till his death. Joel Murray Oxley, his maternal grandfather, was a wool earder of Irish-English stoek who, after losing most of his property in a flood of Wheeling ereek in eastern Ohio, moved to Cambridge. It was at that place that David Glenn Thompson, youngest son of David, then and during his working years a shoemaker, met Agnes Miranda Oxley, daughter of Joel Murray, then a sehcol teacher in the village. They were mar- ried in Cambridge, June 8, 1854, and became the parents of ten children. The first of them was William Oxley Thompson, born at Cambridge, November 5, 1855. Three brothers and three sisters are still living. In 1858, the little family removed to New Coneord, where in 1864 the husband and father enlisted in Company D, 160th Regiment, O. N. G., serving as a substitute for one James Hogseed. On his return in the autumn of 1864, the family moved to Zanesville, where William Oxley's school education, begun at New Con- eord when he was five, was continued. "It is said," Dr. Thompson reports, "that I began my education in the village sehool at New Coneord, in the fall of 1860, just before I was five years old, with the second reader in hand, able to read rapidly and easily. My mother had taught me to read, and so far as I know, reading and spelling eame as a matter of ab- sorption. I have no recollection of the pains of a modern boy in learning either to read or to spell. After this village sehool experienee I attended sehool one winter in Zanesville. My teacher was Miss Rose Kerner, to whom I am greatly indebted for the aeeuraey of her instruction. After that I had one spring term in the Ream school house near Sego, and the following year at a sehool known as Ireland, some distance north of Mt. Perry. I attended the publie sehool in Brownsville while we resided there, and went to Muskingum College first in 1870, when I was fifteen years of age, and continued with some irregularity until I graduated in 1878."
The beginnings and progress of education are in this ease most interesting. It should, therefore, be stated that when he was thirteen, the subject of this sketeh attended sehool for a few weeks where the teacher gave a daily drill in mental arithmetie. "It was the custom." says Dr. Thompson, "to ehase an imaginary squirrel up and down a tree by leaps and bounds, so that we learned to add and subtraet with great rapidity and aeeuraey. Later, proeesses of multiplication with all sorts of combinations were developed until we could multiply and divide all ordinary numbers as fast as anybody eould name the pro- cesses. To these were added squaring, extraeting the square root and even more difficult mental problems. I regard these exercises as having given me the foundation in quiek and accurate computation, self-reliance in my own processes and a facility in numbers that abides with me to this day."
In the spring of 1869, the boy worked as a hired hand on a farm for Joseph Bogle, some distance south of Brownsville, and at the close of the harvest entered the summer school taught by Rev. H. A. MeDonald at Brownsville, being the youngest and smallest pupil in the school. Here he learned his first Latin and continued his study of advanced arithmetie and algebra. In the summer of 1870 he worked on the farm of D. G. Hamilton for $8 a month and board. It was then that he went first to Muskingum College, working at intervals for Mr. Hamilton and his brother-in-law, J. Morton Black. At the elose of one eight-month period of farm labor under a contract at $10 a month and board, his em- plover gave him an extra $1 a month. That $8, he says, seemed the largest sum he had ever known and was quickly added to his other accumulations to meet his expenses at Mus- kingum College. When necessity again drove him back to farm work. he was able to eom- mand a wage of $16 a month and board.
In 1872 he was examined at Zanesville and granted a certificate to teach and, when re- peated applications for a school in the vicinity met with no success, he seeured, through the influence of his unele, William T. Brown, a school near Lawn Ridge, Marshall county, Illi- nois. Thither he went in November. seeured a certificate at Wenona and, until the date set for the opening of the school, husked eorn for Joseph Smith, agreeing to take his pay in board while serving as teacher. His salary as teacher during the four-months winter term was $45 a month. At the close of school he returned to farm work and labored as
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opportunity offered in various places until Deeember, 1873, when he taught again, this time at the Kellogg school house, four miles north of Lawn Ridge, at $50 a month. Farm work in the summer of 1874 brought him $23 a month and board, and after another winter term of school, he returned to Muskingum College, continuing straight through two years. Dur- ing the first winter, he aeted as janitor, tending the fires in the one building then standing for Muskingum College, and taking complete charge of the building. Later when a profes- sor of mathematies disappeared, he became a tutor in that study, earning a little more for his eollege expenses. In the winter of 1877 he taught a distriet school in Oxford town- ship, about a mile west of Fairfield, Guernsey county, but, despite his best endeavor, the last year in college found him $100 short of the amount necessary to graduate.
When Joseph Smith, his Ilinois farmer friend, learned of this predicament, he drove one evening to the home of another farmer, Jacob Clemmer, with the news. "Gosh all Harry !" he exclaimed. "Will is out of money and needs $100 in order to graduate." Neither of the men had any money, but they knew a neighbor who did have it. So on their joint note, they borrowed the $100 and sent it to the impoverished student, asking no security. It was a test of friendship and loyalty that any young man might well prize.
Dr. Thompson's years at Muskingum lay in that period when college boys were not aided, as now, in the discovery of outlets for their surplus vitality. They had to invent much of their amusement, and the inventions did not always meet with the approval of the faculty. It is not recorded that Will Thompson had anything to do with the pranks that then took the place of athleties. Perhaps, being janitor of the building and later a tutor at twenty cents a lesson, he was considered in the pale of those who had authority. But he was good-humored and alert, and there was one occasion when he fell under suspicion. A group of students one night pastured some sheep in the college building. In the morning when the new-comers were discovered there was a great sensation. Many saw them leave college, but there was no one who would admit having seen them enter. Suddenly from the throng that was diseussing the incident, there arose the ery, "See the sheep in Thompson's eyes !" There was great laughter and the charge, while never proved, was accepted as true and was generally believed until the conspirators years after themselves revealed the truth. If the presideney of the class of '78 had gone, as was customary, to the student of the best scholarship rank, Will Thompson would have got it. But by a vote which became a majority by the other candidate voting for himself, the office went to another. The Thomp- son adherents rebelled and, finding that they could not reverse the action, indueed the presi- dent of the college to put on the commencement program the statement that the elass presideney carried with it no signifieanee of superior scholarship. This was supplemented, during the commencement exercises by an interruption of the program, the Thompson adher- ents bringing to the stage a great floral harp, between the arms of which was suspended a gold watch. The band was directed to play to cover up the interruption, but the members of the band were sympathizers and conveniently failed to hear the order. The harp and watch were then presented to Will Thompson and by him accepted, mueh to the discomfiture, no doubt, of him who had obtained the class presideney in an irregular way.
Muskingum College traditions eoneern, of course, the entire alumni body, but there are three men who are more often involved than any others. They are Dr. Thompson, Dr. William Gallogly Moorehead and Dr. William Rainey Harper. The latter two are both dead. Dr. Harper, after graduating at Muskingum, became a great Hebrew scholar and educator and was the organizer of the University of Chicago, and until his death the presi- dent. Dr. Moorehead became a United Presbyterian minister and missionary and was for many years professor of theology and president of the Xenia Theological Seminary. All the friends of Muskingum talk of these distinguished men, and by the older generation their footprints are still pointed out on the campus. And in Oxford township. Guernsey county, there is the Thompson school, so called in honor of the teacher who served there for a short time in 1877-78.
With the diploma he had worked so hard to obtain, at last in his possession, Mr. Thompson returned to Illinois, where the two schools in which he had previously taught were offered to him without solicitation. He chose the one at Lawn Ridge. There he taught and again worked in the harvest field and, having paid with interest the note for $100, left for the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pa., to prepare himself for the ministry. There his small savings were soon spent, but he was rescued from his financial plight by the offer,
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through a member of the faculty, Rev. Samuel J. Wilson, of an opportunity to operate a 20- weeks summer school on a subscription basis, at Plumville, Indiana county, Pa. He seized the opportunity and, with his earnings at Plumville, managed to get through another year of his theological course. At the meeting of the Zanesville Presbytery at Dresden, Ohio, he was licensed to preach, and during the following summer, he taught in Glade Run Academy, conducted by Rev. George Mechlin, D. D., and on Sunday preached for two country churches. Returning to the seminary for his senior work, with a little money ahead, he was pleasantly surprised by the award of a scholarship of $200 from an unknown source. This enabled him to complete his course without further financial anxiety.
He offered himself as a missionary to Siam, but instead found himself in May, 1882, a few weeks after his graduation, located as a home missionary at Odebolt, Sac county, Iowa, with no assurance as to salary or other conditions. There had been a church quarrel, and only twenty members were left, and of these only three were men. The outlook was rather dark when on the Fourth of July, Mr. Thompson was unexpectedly ealled upon to fill the place of a missing orator. He accepted and acquitted himself so well that two school house preaching appointments were given to him, and within a month $550 had been pledged toward his salary; so he preached three times on Sunday, onee at Odebolt, onee ten miles north and once seven miles south of the village. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Ft. Dodge in the Presbyterian church there, July 13, 1882, and installed as pastor of the church at Ode- bolt at a salary of $900, and remained in that charge till March, 1885.
A call from the Presbyterian church at Longmont, Colorado, took him thither in the spring of 1885, and he served there from April of that year till July, 1891, preaching not only at Longmont, but in school houses in various directions, churches being organized and developed at two of these places. A project for the creation of a Synodical College of the Synod of Colorado was under way when Dr. Thompson went to Longmont. He helped to raise the last $50,000 of the money needed and became the first president of the institu- tion. He continued in this service for three years and was succeeded by Rev. George Criss- man, D. D.
In 1891 Dr. Thompson was elected a commissioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Detroit. Before leaving for that service, he received notice from the late Bishop David H. Moore, then editor of the Western Christian Advocate, that he had been recommended for the presidency of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. At Detroit a committee of the Miami University trustees interviewed him, and a short time later while in Columbus attending the Republican State convention as a spectator, he was notified of his election to the presidency of Miami. Returning to Longmont, he resigned his pastorate, accepted the presidency and began his service at Oxford, August 1, 1891. He filled that office for eight years and while there was elected president of the Ohio State Sunday School Association, serving in that capacity for six years. During the observance of the seventy- fifth anniversary of Miami University, in June, 1899, Dr. Thompson was elected to the presidency of the Ohio State University. He accepted and removed to Columbus in mid- summer, serving both institutions for a portion of the summer in the matter of correspon- dence.
Of his service at the Ohio State University, there is no better record than is to be found in the development of the institution, its excellent morale and the continuing esteem of faculty, alumni, students, and the general public. Muskingum College has conferred upon him the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Divinity, while the Western University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, the University of Vermont and the University of Michi- gan have conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was an active member during the war of the State and Federal Couneils of National Defense. He was designated by the Agri- cultural Department for a speaking and inspection trip through the Northwest with special reference to the production and conservation of food, and he was chairman of an agricultural commission sent to England and France to report the conditions there. President Wilson, in the period following the war, signally honored him twice-first by appointing him a member of the second Industrial Commission charged with devising a program for the just and friendly co-operation of capital and labor, and, second, by naming him as one of the commission to adjust the differences between the anthracite coal operators and miners. For both of these high ser- vices he was temporarily released by the Board of Trustees from his duties at the Ohio State University. It was during this period of exacting public service that Dr. Thompson tender-
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ed his resignation of the presidency of the University, later withdrawing it when the trustees, faculty, alumni, student body and the public refused to let him retire.
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