History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 116

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 116

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In that session, by a special resolution of his own, he took upon himself the work of the new census law, as he had also done in respect to the preceding law whieb produced the marvelous tomes of the Tenth Census reports. He was the author of the plan of apportionment of Representatives adopted by the House. The tariff was an old theme with him and reciprocity of trade and commerce his constant effort and ambition. As a political economist he was always a leader of his party. In recognition of his attainments in that abstruse science, the Cobden Club of England bestowed upon him an honorary membership. The persecution of the Jews abroad was also one of the subjects of his earnest and philanthropie protests, personal and legislative, and his sympathy went out to all lands where men were oppressed and striving for civil and religious liberty. He introduced and championed for many years the bill concerning the lifesaving service and finally witnessed its passage. Mr. Cox's work in Congress also included the rais- ing of salaries of the letter-carriers, shortening their hours of labor and granting them an annual vacation without loss of pay. For many years he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution and took great interest in its work. In 1868-69 he visited Europe and Algiers.

In 1872, Mr. Cox was defeated as a candidate for congressman-at-large upon the State ticket, but the death of Hon. James Brooks, Representative of a New York City district, necessitated another election, and Mr. Cox was returned to the same Congress for which he had once been defeated. Among his last great works as a Congressman was his eloquent and able advocacy of the admis- sion of the four new States of Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota. This he achieved the last year of his life, demonstrating a statesmanship which soared above partizanship, seeing only the advancement and honor of the whole

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country. In 1885, while a member of the Fortyninth Congress, he was appointed by President Cleveland Minister Plenipotentiary to Turkey. Ile resigned this position with regret at the end of eighteen months, after having arranged, as far as the Sublime Porte was concerned, the treaty stipulations which had been initiated years before by our government. It was alleged that State reasons pre- vented its being presented to or acted upon by the United States Senate. Within two months after his return, Mr. Cox was elected to Congress to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Hon. Joseph Pulitzer, being thus a second time elected to a Congress from which he had once resigned. Shortly after Mr. Cox's resignation and return from Turkey, he received the decoration of the Order of the Mejidich from Ilis Imperial Majesty, Sultan Abdul Hamid II., the decoration of the Order of the Shefakat having already been bestowed upon the minister's wife in Turkey.

In addition to his first book, " A Buckeye Abroad," Mr. Cox published in 1866 a volume of experiences while in Congress from Ohio, viz., " Eight Years in Congress." His next books were " A Search for Winter Sunbeams in Corsica, Algiers and Spain," in 1869; " Why We Langh " in 1876; and in 1882 two volumes after a summer tour in Northern and Eastern Europe entitled " Arctie Sunbeams" and " Orient Sunbeams." He also published a little brochure styled " Free Land and Free Trade," which is an epitome of the principles of Tariff Reform. His latest political work entitled, "Three Decades of Federal Legislation," was pub- lished in 1886. After his return from Turkey he wrote, in 1887, a small volume called " Prinkipo, or Isle of the Princes," and a larger volume called " Diversions of a Diplomat." Mr. Cox was a polished writer. His books of travel give vivid accounts of the countries and the peoples of which he writes, and in his pen- pictures, the humorous side of human nature is never forgotten. Whenever it eame under the flash of his eye it came under the point of his pen, and in present- ing it he had the happy faculty of holding the mirror up to nature. All of his productions, whether in book form, in the halls of Congress, or on the platform, were of classic finish and were characterized by thorough scholarship. Proofs of the unforgetting gratitude of those in whose behalf he wrought so manfully dur- ing his publie career may be seen in the statue erected to his memory, by the letter carriers, in the city of New York ; in the exquisite memorial vase in massive silver, a gift to Mrs. Cox, by the Life Saving Service; in the beautifully engrossed sets of resolutions presented to her by the railway postal clerks, and by various civic organizations ; and in numberless other testimonials of love and gratitude which have come to her from different parts of our country.

DAVID SMITH [Portrait opposite page 456.]

Was born at Francistown, New Hampshire, October 18, 1785. A sketch of his career as journalist has been given in the history of the Press, to which reference is here made. Owing to the participation of his ancestors in the siege of London- derry, in King William's time, their lands were exempt from taxation, and his grandfather's farm in New Hampshire was one of those known as " Free Lands."

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David Smith graduated at Dartmouth College in 1811. He had as follow-students, if not classmates, Levi Woodbury, afterwards United States Senator and Secretary of the Treasury ; Amos Kendall, the famous editor and Postmaster-General under President Jackson, and Isaac Hill, editor of the New Hampshire Patriot, and Gov- ernor, with whom he always sustained friendly and even intimate relations. IIe was also a distant relative of Franklin Pierce, with whom, however, he did not agree politically, and especially on the slavery question, being as strongly in favor of abolition as Pierce was opposed to it. This led him to decline an important con- sular appointment tendered to him during Mr. Pierce's administration.

Mr. Smith was admitted to the bar before or soon after leaving school, but did not enter on the practice of law in his native town. In August, 1814, he was married to Rhoda Susan Mitchell, born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and a daughter or descendant of Captain John Mitchell, somewhat famous for his brav- ery and military skill in the annals of that rebellious and troublesome colony. The newly married couple moved to Columbus, which had two years before been fixed upon as the permanent capital of Ohio. Here he was among the first, if not the first, lawyer to become a permanent resident, and thus came to be commonly known as " Judge " Smith, a title which he afterwards earned.

In 1816, in connection with Ezra Griswold, of Worthington, he began the publication in Columbus of a small newspaper bearing the long title, Ohio Monitor and Patron of Husbandry. It was not strictly speaking an agricultural journal, though part of its name was afterwards adopted as the name of a powerful farm- ers organization. The paper continued for some time under this burdensomo title, but was throughout the greater part of its useful career simply Ohio Monitor, a name not inappropriate, for it abounded in good advice and timely warning, like the village clock, and most other papers of its period. As the pub- lication of this paper began at the outset of the "era of good feeling" under President Monroe, the Monitor had no distinctive party affiliations during the first six or eight years of its existence. Still, it was always an ardent advocate of protec- tion to American manufacturers. In the campaign of 1824 the paper supported John Quincy Adams for President with much vigor. After the famous coalition of the friends of Adams and Clay, resulting in the election of Adams to the Presi- dency and the appointment of Clay as Secretary of State, Judge Smith, whose hatred of slavery had cansed him to be bitterly and almost malignantly hostile to Clay because of his inventing and carrying through Congress the famous Missouri compromise, was so incensed that he became vehemently opposed to the "admin- istration party," as the supporters of Adams were called, and before the campaign of 1828 began, the Monitor had become, and during that campaign was an ardent supporter of General Jackson for the presidency. It was ever after an independ- ent, influential and much quoted Democratie paper. It was still for protection and until its sale remained fervent in that faith. Soon after the Presidential elec- tion of 1836, the Monitor was sold to Jacob Medary, a brother of the famous Samuel Medary, and it became one of the component parts of the Ohio Statesman, in which its power and influence were long continued.

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Judge Smith was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives from Franklin County and was here a strenuous opponent of the " Black Laws," which caused bim to become very unpopular with the dominant wing of bis party. He was again a candidate for Representative in 1827, but was defeated by General Thomas C. Flournoy. He was elected State Printer by the Legislature, December 29, 1830, over John Bailache, editor of the Journal, on the day of the election of Thomas Ewing as United States Senator; Moses H. Kirby as Secretary of State and Byram Leonard as " Keeper" of the Ohio Penitentiary. Judge Smith always regarded it a great compliment that he should have been elected to this position by a party to which he was opposed, the Legislature then being in con- trol of the Whigs. He had previously been elected an Associate Judge of the Common Pleas Court of Franklin County by the legislature elected in 1824, and held the office for several years. Soon after the Presidential election of 1836, he went to Washington to accept a position in the Postoffice Department under Presi- dent Jackson. He held this office until 1845, first year Polk's administration, when he was relieved as he believed, because of his ultra views in favor of the abolition of slavery.

Never of very robust constitution, his health had been very much impaired by department work at Washington. So, his remaining years were spent princi- pally in retirement at the homes of his children. Two of these lived at Wheeling, West Virginia, and two in Adams County, Ohio. The former were his daughter, Rhoda, who married Jobn W. Gill, a prominent manufacturer, and David J., his youngest son, then in the mercantile business in Wheeling. Mr. Gill subsequently removed to Springfield, Illinois, where he died in 1873. His widow is still living near that city. David J. Smith is also living and is a prominent business man of Bellair, Ohio. His daughter Elizabeth married Joseph W. MeCormick, who was Attorney-General of Ohio under Governor Wood. Both Mr. and Mrs. McCormick are now dead. Judge David Smith's oldest son, Judge John M. Smith, was then and for many years after editor of the Adam's County Democrat, published at West Union, where he still resides. He is probably the best known and is among the oldest and ablest lawyers of that county. The newspaper instinct and ability of David Smith have been transmitted to the second generation, where they are now represented in Mr. Joseph P. Smith, wellknown for his recent connections with the Clermont Courier and Urbana Citizen, since editor of the Toledo Commercial and now State Librarian.

Judge David Smith died at Manchester, Ohio, February 5, 1865. His remains were brought to this city and interred in the Old Graveyard, near where the Union Station now stands, but were subsequently removed to Green Lawn Cem- etery. He was a man of force of character and his memory is still treasured by a number of the older citizens of this city. In the growth and progress of the city, to which he, in some measure contributed, he always took the greatest pride. The greatest solicitude he felt during the lastyears of his life was for the complete triumph of the Union cause, and no event in the history of his country gave him more pleasure than the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln, in 1863.

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WILLIAM HOOKER SLADE [Portrait opposite page 408.]

Was born February 23, 1823, at Cornwall, Addison County, Vermont. Ilis father's name was Norman B. Slade, by occupation a farmer. Ilis mother's maiden name was Clarissa Alvord. His paternal grandfather, William Slade, was a soldier in the War of Independence, having enlisted from Connecticut. He was taken pris- oner at Fort Washington, on the Hudson River, and was confined on board a prison-ship in New York harbor. At the close of the war he settled in Cornwall, Vermont, where he lived as a farmer until his death in 1827. Mr. Slade's pater- nal grandmother's maiden name was Mercy Bronson. She died in 1830, His maternal grandfather, John Alvord, was also a Revolutionary soldier. His grand- mother's maiden name was Olive Cogswell. His uncle, William Slade, represented his native State in Congress for six successive terms, from 1830 to 1842, and was afterwards elected Governor of Vermont.

The only schooling that Mr. Slade received was obtained at the district schools of his native State. He lived on a farm until twentyone years of age, when he was compelled by failing health to seek some lighter employment. He entered the drygoods store of Gordon Searl, in Bridport, Vermont, and remained there for two years, excepting four months in the winter of the last year, during which time he taught the district school of that town. He then entered the dry- goods store of Zachariah Beckwith, in Middlebury, Vermont, for whom he worked two years, until 1848, when he came to Columbus. He found employment in the drygoods store of William Richards as clerk and bookkeeper, and continued to serve in that capacity for three years, until 1851, when he entered into partner- ship with Mr. Richards. This partnership continued until 1855, when it was dis- solved by mutual consent. He next went to Burlington, Iowa, where he remained until 1858, in the wholesale notion business. In 1858, he returned to Columbus, and became bookkeeper for Eberly & Shedd, wholesale grocers. In November, 1861, Mr. Slade joined the Fiftyseventh Ohio Infantry to manage the sutler busi- ness of that regiment for Eberly & Shedd. He was compelled to give this up in 1863, on account of poor health. In 1865, he entered into a partnership with J. & W. B. Brooks, wholesale grocers. From this partnership he withdrew in 1870, when he formed one with Mr. John Field, to carry on a lumber business. In 1873, Mr. E. Kelton bought Mr. Field's interest, since which time the business has been carried on in the name of Slade & Kelton.

Mr. Slade was married at Columbus, in 1851, to Marion Elizabeth Bell, niece of Mr. John Field, of Columbus. Nine children have been born to them, six girls and three boys, namely : Elizabeth Undine, William H. Junior, Marion Bell, Frank Norman, Clara Alvord, Olive, Alice Carey, John Field, and Abby Field. Mr. Slade is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, of the Knights Templar and of Royal Masonic Rite 95°. He is a Republican, and during 1883-4, served on the School Board of Columbus.

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ALFRED EMORY LEE [Portrait opposite page 504.]

Was born at Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, February 17, 1838, and spent most of the first twenty years of his life on a farm adjacent to the Old National Road, four miles west of St. Clairsville. His education, begun in a primitive log schoolhouse, was further pursued at an academy founded by his uncle, B. F. Lee, at Poland, Mahoning County, and was completed at the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity, at Delaware, from which he graduated under President (afterwards Bishop) Thomson, in 1859. Atter another summer spent on the farm, he attended the Ohio State and Union Law School, at Cleveland, of which Judge C. Hayden, an eminent New York jurist, was president and General M D. Leggett, for a time, a professor. From this institution, which was also originally founded by his unele, he graduated just after the outbreak of the civil war in 1861. Returning to the farm to help gather the harvest, he was at work in the field when he received a newspaper from Wheeling announcing the appalling defeat of the National Army at Bull Run. He soon after engaged in the recruiting service, and on November 4, 1861, was mustered in at Delaware, Ohio, as a private soldier of the Eighty- second Ohio Infantry, a regiment then being organized under Colonel James Cantwell, of Kenton. About one month later the company, in which he was one of the first to enlist, was conducted, nearly ninety strong, to the rendezvous of the regiment at Camp Simon Kenton, near Kenton. Its leader fas George H. Purdy, a talented young lawyer of Delaware, who was afterwards killed at Chancellors- ville. By unanimous vote of this company, at the organization of the regiment, Mr. Purdy was chosen its captain and Mr. Lee its first lieutenant. Its second lieutenant, also chosen by the company, was Harvey M. Litzenberg, of Delaware County, who was afterwards killed in battle at Groveton.

Under Colonel Cantwell, a veteran of the Mexican War, also destined to fall at Groveton, the Eightysecond took the field early in 1862, and from that time forward remained in active service at the front until the war closed. Its total enrollment was 1,721; its total loss in killed and wounded 524. Fox's Regimental Losses says: "The Eightysecond lost the most officers in battle of any Ohio regiment." Of twentytwo officers engaged with it at Gettysburg it lost twenty, all but two of whom were killed or wounded. Its loss of enlisted men in that battle was 161 out of a total engaged of 236. After serving eighteen months in Virginia it was transferred with the Eleventh and Twelfth army corps, under Hooker, to the Army of the Cumberland. Mr. Lee served with it, except when detached on staff duty, until its musterout in July, 1865, and participated in the following battles and campaigns : Bull Pasture Mountain, Cross Keys, Cedar Mountain, Groveton (otherwise called Manassas), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wauhatchie, Missionary Ridge, Relief of Knoxville, Resaca, New Hope Church, Culp's Farm, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Sandersville, Monteith Swamp, Savannah, Averysboro and Bentonville. After the battle of Cedar Mountain, Lieutenant Lee was, very unexpectedly to himself, promoted to a captaincy. At the battle of Gettysburg he was severely wounded, captured and reported killed. By the kindness of a mounted orderly attached to the staff of the Confederate General

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Ewell, he was conveyed to the Crawford House, then the headquarters of that officer, and was cared for by Mrs. Smith, a member of the Crawford household. Among his fellow captives there was General Francis C. Barlow, of New York. From the Crawford House he was conveyed after the battle to the Eleventh Corps Field Hospital at the Spangler Barn, in and abont which were lying, at the time, about 1500 Union and Confederate wounded. Among the Confederates was the famous General Armistead, who fell in Pickett's charge, and died in a shed a few yards from the haymow in which Captain Lee, with the other wounded, were placed.

As soon as his wound had sufficiently healed to enable him to walk, Captain Lee rejoined his regiment at Bridgeport, Alabama. A few days later he took part in the midnight repulse of Longstreet, the old Virginia antagonist of his corps, in Lookout Valley, and with a detachment of four companies, of which he was placed in command, drove the enemy from a steep timbered height, afterwards known (from the commander of his brigade) as the Tyndale Hill. From this hill, at a later period in the campaign, General Hooker directed the attack on Lookout Mountain.

By the Lookout Valley battle, known as Wauhatchie, the direct supply route of the Army of the Cumberland, then on the verge of starvation, was opened. For some days and nights ensuing, Hooker's troops, while constantly shelled in daytime from the batteries on Lookout Mountain, were engaged in fortifying their position in expectation of another attack. While thus engaged, with his company, at midnight, Captain Lee was visited, on a round of inspection, by his brigade commander, General Hector Tyndale, of Philadelphia, with whom he then, for the first time, made a personal acquaintance. A few days later General Tyndale appointed him Adjutant-General of the brigade, a position in which he continued to serve, in the field, until the close of the war. A few months after he bad been called to the staff, the command of the brigade devolved upon the late General James S. Robinson, original Major of the Eightysecond Ohio, the effects of a severe wound having compelled General Tyndale to withdraw from active service.1 During the March to the Sea, Adjutant-General Lee, at the head of an infantry detachment from his brigade, leading the Twentieth Corps, drove Wheeler's Confederate cavalry some miles on the road near Sandersville, Georgia. For this service he received the compliment of personal mention by General Robinson to General Slocum.

During his army service Mr. Lee wrote a series of " knapsack letters," which were published over the signature " A. T. Sechand "-an imitation of " Eighty- second," the number of his regiment-in the Delaware, Ohio, Gazette. He also wrote occasionally for the Cincinnati Commercial, the Army and Nary Journal, and other periodicals. While in the field he was a diligent student of military science, and when the war closed received from Secretary Stanton an appointment as Second-Lieutenant in the Thirtythird United States Infantry (Colonel De Trobriand), but declined the position. He was mustered out of service at Lonis- ville, Kentucky, July 24, 1865, while serving as Adjutant-General of a Provisional Division. Returning to Delaware, Ohio, he began the practice of law there, but

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soon afterward drifted into the profession of journalism, as narrated in the chap- ter on The Press.

In 1868 Mr. Lee was elected to represent Delaware County in the General Assembly, in which he moved the appointment of a special committee, of which he was made chairman, to consider and report upon the recommendations of Gov- ernor Hayes for a Geological Survey of the State. He prepared the report of that committee and also its accompanying bill, which passed without amendment through both houses, and became the law, in pursuance of which, and supplemen- tary acts since passed, the Geological Survey of Ohio has been executed. He also assisted actively in securing the establishment of the State Industrial Home for Girls, and its location in Delaware County. He was a member of the Republican State Central Committee in 1868-9; was a delegate to the Republican State Con- vention which first nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for Governor ; was collector of Internal Revenue for the Eighth District of Ohio in 1871-a position which he found incompatible with his professional duties, and resigned ; was appointed Pri- vate Secretary to Governor Hayes in 1876 ; was appointed by President Hayes to be Consul General at Frankfort-on-the-Main, as successor to the deceased General William P. Webster, of Massachusetts, in 1877; was Secretary of the Gettysburg Memorial Commission of Ohio in 1886-7; was Secretary of the General Council which had charge of the local management of the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, at Columbus, in 1888, in recognition of which serv- ice he was elected a member of the Board of Trade; and in April, 1890, was appointed by Governor Campbell as a Trustee of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home at Xenia, from which position he resigned in August, 1891. A statement of his experiences in the profession of journalism appears in the chapters on The Press. He is the author of a volume of historical and travel sketches entitled " European Days and Ways," and has been a frequent contributor to current magazine literature.

'NOTE BY A. E. L .- General Tyndale was a cousin to the celebrated English scientist, Professor John Tyndall, of London. At the battle of Antietam he received a desperate wound, which obliged him, at length, to abandon active serv- ice, and from the effects of which he finally died. He was a brave man, of rare intellectual ability and accomplishments. His successor, General Robinson, in like manner greatly suffered and finally died from the effects of his terrible wound received at Gettysburg. He was a true patriot, a brave soldier and a noble- hearted man.

LEANDER J. CRITCHFIELD [Portrait opposite page 584.]

Was born at Danville, Knox County, Ohio, on January 13, 1827. At the age of eight years, he removed with his parents to Millersburgh, Holmes County, Ohio, where he spent his early life receiving such scholastic training as was afforded in the public schools of that place. When fifteen years old, he obtained employment in the office of the clerk of Holmes County. He remained there two years, bccom-

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 116

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202